President Snow Will Drive an EV

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eric
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It’s not so much that the future is “electric.” It is that in the future they have planned for us, only the affluent will drive electric cars.

Everyone else will not be able to drive.

If that sounds extravagant, consider two facts. The first is that – aside from a very few, very small models like the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf – the entry price point of the typical electric car is about $50,000. Most “transact” – that is, sell – for considerably more than that. Leaving aside the fact that we are talking about electric cars, that price point defines luxury cars – which are cars that by definition are bought by affluent people only.

And there are only so many of those.

The price of these electric luxury vehicles is going up, too. Not down – as the electric car propagandists have insisted they would, when they were selling the gullible public on EVs.

They are not going up because of the devaluation of the buying power of money – what is glibly styled “inflation” by those who either do not understand or wish to hide the fact that the buying power of money is being devalued; i.e., that it is the result of deliberate policy.

It is because of natural market forces.

EVs, themselves, are the result of unnatural market forces – having been mandated, subsidized or otherwise artificially pushed onto the market. But the reason for the increase in the price of a new EV has to do with the upticking market prices of the materials needed to make electric vehicle batteries, without which an EV is the functional equivalent of a static display of an airplane that doesn’t fly.

Government can mandate EVs to be produced. It can mandate that only EVs may be sold. It cannot mandate the cost of the materials needed to make them be lowered. Price controls would only assure fewer would be made as it is economically impossible to maintain the building and selling of anything at a price lower than it costs to make whatever it is.

Interestingly, one of the essential materials used to make electric vehicle batteries is lithium, which is a non-renewable material that is also neither abundant nor inexpensive. Obtaining usable quantities of it entails a process not unlike that involved in obtaining a usable amount of enriched uranium. Immense quantities of raw materials must be extracted and then processed – in vast leaching fields, for lithium. It requires processing around 25,000 pounds of brine to obtain the roughly 25 lbs. of lithium used in a typical electric vehicle battery pack.

Unlike hydrocarbon fuels – which are massively abundant and economical to extract and refine – limited supplies of lithium are insufficient to keep up with the artificially induced demand for electric vehicles – and the cost involved in getting it and refining what lithium there is assures that the price of electric vehicles will continue to go up as demand for it increases.

Unless of course, a new type of battery that does not require lithium replaces the lithium-based batteries that store the power to propel almost all modern electric cars.

The same EV advocates who insisted that EV costs would go down now insist that such batteries are “coming.”

It is of a piece with “two weeks to flatten the curve,” based on the track record of EV promises so far unfulfilled. The fact remains that almost all EVs in production depend on lithium-based batteries.

Electric vehicle batteries also require large quantities of graphite, nickel and cobalt, the costs of which are also increasing. There is in addition to that the cost of the electricity, itself – certain to increase as demand for it increases as capacity to produce it remains . . . flat.

Part of the reason for all of this increase has to do with the fact that almost all electric vehicles are luxury vehicles. They have huge batteries, which are necessary to deliver the power/performance that people who spend $50,000-plus on a car – electric or not – expect. Just as people who spend $100 on dinner at a nice restaurant expect china and linen rather than paper plates and napkins.

There is very little to no effort being made to make electric vehicles affordable – which would entail making them less powerful, less luxurious. A 1,000 pound battery pack is the EV equivalent of a large V8 engine. Many EVs have even larger battery packs that are the equivalent of V12 engines. These require – and use – vastly more energy than is necessary for just getting around. They require – and use up – vastly more raw materials than would be necessary to build a battery sufficient to provide economical performance.

If – as the people propagandizing for “electrification” insist – the future is one in which everyone will drive an electric car, why is it that electric luxury cars seem to be the only future?

Why is it that there seems to be no future for cars average people can afford?

There is also the tangential fact that electric vehicles impose time costs on people that can least afford to pay them. The limited range and lengthy amount of time it takes to recharge and re-instill range in an EV all-but-forces the EV owner to drive less – and less far. In order for many people to be able to drive an EV every day, they would need to own two EVs.

One to drive while the other recharges.

Very affluent people can, of course, afford that. They can also afford to have more than one 240 volt “Level II” charger circuit wired into their garages – and have their home electrical panels upgraded to support that. It is merely a few thousand dollars more – in additional costs.

Average people cannot afford that.

What is happening – the outlines of the future are now visible – is a world in which a personally owned vehicle will be what it was at the beginning of the automobile age some 120 years ago. Which is to say, it will be what was depicted in the dystopian movies based on the Hunger Games books.

President Snow and his entourage – their real-world equivalents – will drive luxury-performance EVs.

The rest of us will drive very little, if we drive at all.

. . .

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Related posts:
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  2. President Clover Says…
  3. A Clover Speaks!
  4. Some EV Truth Telling – From an EV Pioneer
  5. What They Don’t Teach About Snow Driving

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83 COMMENTS

  1. Here are the nine RINO dwarves who sold us out, in yesterday’s House vote on the omnibus humbug:

    1. Cheney (WY)
    2. Davis (IL)
    3. Fitzpatrick (PA)
    4. Herrera Beutler (WA)
    5. Jacobs (NY)
    6. Katko (NY)
    7. Kinzinger (IL)
    8. Upton (MI)
    9. Womack (AR)

    https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2022549

    ‘A day that shall live in infamy,’ as ol’ Frank used to rant.

  2. ‘Just as people who spend $100 on dinner at a nice restaurant expect china and linen rather than paper plates and napkins.’ — eric

    Listed here are the 18 RINO rats who voted yesterday for the ‘china and linen’ porkfest of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending blowout:

    Blunt (MO)
    Boozman (AR)
    Capito (WV)
    Collins (ME)
    Cornyn (TX)
    Cotton (AR)
    Graham (SC)
    Inhofe (OK)
    McClownell (KY)
    Moran (KS)
    Murkowski (AK)
    Portman (OH)
    Romney (UT)
    Rounds (SD)
    Shelby (AL)
    Thune (SD)
    Wicker (MS)
    Young (IN)

    https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00421.htm

    Today, two hundred dwarves gather in the Whorehouse of Representatives to debate the same bill. The rest already have blown out of town, yet will vote (unconstitutionally) by proxy.

    Old-timey scenes such as 92-year-old Senator Byrd being rolled into the chamber in a wheelchair to cast a vote in 2009 are passé … as is the constitution.

    • Hi Jim,

      The passage of the omnibus by the Senate (especially the 18 “Republicans”) absolutely sickens me. Its passage in the House is all, but guaranteed. Americans are struggling to put food on the table and to pay their skyrocketing utility bills and these schmucks have the audacity to pass this load of shit.

      I have the joy (sarc) every year to actually have to read through these bills for my job. One has to notify their clients when his/her government wishes to pull the wool over every taxpayer’s eyes, trying to separate them from their hard earned dollars. I haven’t had time to read it because of the holiday, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find a large raise to government employees (mainly the legislative branch) somewhere in there. Usually if there is a raise for their sorry asses both sides will get on board. We probably won’t hear until January the future tax hikes that will imposed upon the rest of us. The sad thing is the majority of this nation’s citizens don’t care what is in it and how their own representatives are robbing them in the bright light of day.

      If anyone actually still registers as a Democrat or a Republican, or worse, contributes to these asses, should have their head examined.

      When I see people like Mitch McDonnell still holding the position as Senate Minority leader or Ronna McDaniel (Romney’s niece) as the head of the RNC I want to puke. They have lost election after election and still enjoy top status. When arrogant pricks like Mitt the Twit state that they “know” they will win their Senate seat, but they just haven’t decided whether to run yet my gag reflexes goes into overdrive.

      I have never called myself a Republican, although, I voted for many of them. Unfortunately, I have lived to regret every lever pull for these despicable snakes. Personally, I wish both parties would find their way to hell and cease to return leaving the rest of us in peace.

      • ‘I have the joy (sarc) every year to actually have to read through these bills for my job.’ — Raider Girl

        This year’s omnibus bill is ‘only’ 4,155 pages. Maybe you could take on reading War and Peace for relaxation, during breaks from the gobbledygook.

        Today the IRS announced that the $600 threshold for gig and e-commence income reporting (Ebay, Etsy, AirBnB, et al) is postponed for a year.

        Smells like the REAL-ID Act all over again [passed in 2005; deadline just extended to 2025]. As you know, the IRS is hopelessly backlogged and crippled by legacy data processing systems. They hadn’t a hope of processing and assigning millions of small-amount information returns.

        All evidence suggests that the US fedgov is a musclebound colossus, unable (like Clowngress, which hasn’t used the regular appropriations process since 2007) to execute even the simplest task on time without tripping over its own shoelaces.

        But victory in Ukraine is assured, I promise you! /sarc

    • Jim,

      I’m curious if Zelensky has dirt on all those Republican Congress Critters who voted YES on this MASSIVE bill. I’m not sure how much money in this bill is for Ukraine, but the Ukrainian President was in DC this week asking for MORE MONEY, while ordinary Americans continue to suffer under ever increasing prices on energy, food, and day to day living. I suspect that Zelensky, the Military-industrial complex, or perhaps both, will become even better off after this monstrous bill while the masses suffer ever more through winter.

      And I read somewhere that the CDC also wants MORE MONEY despite its lousy COVID response and continued advocacy for ineffective measures and experimental mRNA injections.

  3. “cars that by definition are bought by affluent people only. And there are only so many of those.”
    And fewer of them all the time, as wealth is rapidly transferred ever higher, to fewer “people”. Might not be long before those who own EVs won’t have to worry about keeping one charged, because they will have two or more, and that’s the chauffer’s problem anyway.

    • Shadow,

      I’ve seen commercials from Domino’s Pizza practically bragging about how their delivery vehicles will eventually be ALL ELECTRIC! That could lead to looooooooooooooong waits for pizza from people who order pizza from Domino’s for delivery and drivers have to CHARGE their electric vehicles in between orders.

    • Good luck with that. Amazon deployed electric vans in my area this fall. Since the weather has been bad the last couple days, I have only seen gas and diesel vans again.

      • Germany ordered 56 electric buses for 30 million. they are now sidelined taken off the road. their range was half of what was said and in the winter with heat on and going up all the hills their range was 30% of what was advertised. but the green agenda will go on cause they will not stop until they are taken out

        EV highway driving consumption
        The advertised range that many manufacturers brag about is the average or city driving figure. However, the highway range is much smaller, sometimes up to 50 percent less. But on the highway you need the range….lol…don’t go on the freeway…

        At WOT (going up hills or on the freeway), the range is 80% less, beware…..

        operating Li-ion batteries outside the safety zone (i.e. 20%–80%) state of charge, a loss in conductivity can be observed

        You can only use 60% of the advertised range (between the 20% and 80% charge, the useable range), in very cold weather subtract up to 50% more, so what is the real world range? 50% of 60%? = 30%…lol……exactly what germany got…..

        then this….lol…

        EV bus fire

        How do you extinguish electric vehicle battery fires?

        The answer is you can’t. A fine mist of water is sprayed on the fire to try to keep the temperature down until it finishes burning. It takes a few days until it is safe.

        Besides being highly flammable, lithium is the lightest metal, with an atomic number 3. Lithium is so light, it floats on water, so lithium will blaze away while sitting on top of water.

        Lithium melts at 180C / 356F, and burns at 2000C / 3632F – almost hot enough to melt steel, more than hot enough to destroy most composites and metals like aluminum.

        The fumes from a burning lithium fire are highly toxic, capable of causing death or long term dementia like brain injuries, so you need to keep members of the public at a safe distance. Fire fighters need to wear respirators if they approach the flame.

        Count on insurance rates going up with this nonsense…

        Thermal runaway is an uncontrolled reaction that can occur in lithium-ion batteries. Damage to the battery or a short-circuit can cause heat and pressure to build up in the battery. If this reaches a certain level it triggers chemical reactions that generate more heat and pressure, causing a positive-feedback loop.

        Thermal runaway can quickly spread from one battery to the next, leading to catastrophic explosions and fire. By-products of thermal runaway may include large amounts of flammable hydrogen and other toxic fluoroorganic gases.

        https://www.sustainable-bus.com/electric-bus/sbb-stuttgart-fire-electric-bus-depot/

    • With all these EV fires, these lithium fire bomb batteries are looking very dangerous.
      Someone joked that they look like the work of the devil….lol

      EV fire almost 100 EV’s go up in smoke…..lol

      Scenes From Hell As Massive Fire In Delhi EV Parking Space Guts Nearly 100 Vehicles

      What happens when 2200 Ev’s (a new complex in planning stage will have 2200 parking spaces)….imagine 2200 lithium fire bomb EV’s parked), are parked in underground parking at an apartment block or office tower and they catch fire? You can’t take propane into underground parking, but you can take a fire bomb lithium battery car underground.

      https://www.drivespark.com/off-beat/delhi-electric-vehicle-parking-fire-destroys-nearly-100-vehicles-036152.html

    • Probably a V8 could be shoehorned into a Tesla, and the battery pack area below the floor pan converted into a long-range gas tank.

      Maybe we could get a government grant for a pilot project. Save the EeeVeeeees! 🙂

    • Dan, I’m guessing, No.

      There’s no drivetrain to hook up to, the frame is prolly crap, and unless you wanna drive-by-wire, there’s no throttle cables & you’d likely wanna add a steering linkage. Might as well build a whole new car?
      People do -do that- with total rust buckets, I suppose.

      Once you remove the battery pack & the lectric motors they might be nice’n light enough to connect to a donkey?

      Idk. Just a guess. Interesting thought, anyway.

    • There is a you-tuber named Rich Rebuilds (not me) that has put a v8 engine in a Tesla. He got in trouble with the EPA over a diesel one.

      • Well, I’ll be darned:

        ‘Rich Rebuilds’ V8 Tesla Stole The Show At SEMA 2021′

        “We’ve seen plenty of ICE-to-EV swaps before, but never EV-to-ICE. Rich’s car was a SEMA showstopper.”

        “the project took Rich & Co. two years from start to finish.”…

        https://www.hotcars.com/rich-rebuilds-v8-tesla-stole-the-show-at-sema-2021/

        I didn’t see right away how much that project costs, perhaps some teenager could do one on the cheap? Maybe. Possibly. Probably, not.

        Anyway, that’s certainly a big part of what’s wrong in America: “He got in trouble with the EPA over a diesel one.”

  6. President Snow Will Drive an EV….the eps will fail and he will crash…..the lithium fire bomb batteries will explode………..hopefully….lol

    Ford’s Electronic Power Assisted Steering (EPAS) System is a Hot Mess

    Ford replaced hydraulic power steering with an electronic power assisted steering (EPAS) system to improve MPGs and provide variable power assist to owners.
    But the EPAS system is subject to electrical failures and premature breakdowns, causing a sudden loss of power steering while driving.
    A few recalls have been made, but owners continue to have problems and have filed multiple class-action lawsuits.

    Hydraulic systems have a multi-decade track record of successful steering with relatively easy maintenance. So naturally, Ford banished it to the curb and replaced it with something much more complicated.

    Be gone, hydraulics! Embrace your digital overlord – electronic power assisted steering (EPAS).

    EPAS replaces a lot of the mechanical parts of previous steering assist systems (pumps, fluids, hosts, pulleys) and replaces them with tiny computers called ECUs and a whole bunch of code.

    EPAS is more complex. Ford’s system contains a Power Steering Control (PSC) Motor, Electronic Control Unit (ECU), and a Torque Sensor and Steering Wheel Position Sensor.
    They are difficult to diagnose. Was it a PSC failure or did the ECU send improper instructions? Perhaps one of the sensors is misreading the data it’s supposed to be collecting.

    the cost to replace just one part……..Defective Torque Sensor∞
    When you turn the wheel in your Ford, the torque sensor monitors which way you’ve turned and how far. That information is sent to the ECU, but what happens when the information never gets sent? One widely accepted theory is that a defective torque sensor isn’t giving the ECU the information it needs, and the power steering as a result gets disabled.

    So the simplest solution is to just replace the torque sensor, right? Well, unfortunately the torque sensor is part of the steering column assembly and is not serviceable separately. In other words, once that sensor goes the entire steering column needs to be replaced. And that’s expensive with the
    the average repair cost around $1,500……just for the torque sensor replacement….

    http://www.fordproblems.com/epas/

    • Ford replaced hydraulic power steering with an electronic power assisted steering (EPAS) system to improve MPGs and provide variable power assist to owners.
      But the EPAS system is subject to electrical failures and premature breakdowns, causing a sudden loss of power steering while driving.
      A few recalls have been made, but owners continue to have problems and have filed multiple class-action lawsuits.

      the new cars are just over priced junk and EV’s are far worse…

      three of my cars have manual racks….the others have hydraulic racks….for drivers the manual racks are best….more road feel…more involvement feed back…..

  7. Funny someone mentioned “Jalopnik” I used to drop by that site from time to time and then it got over run with EEEEVVVV fanboys. The problem I have with them…. is that most fanboys live or want to live in California…and California is perfect EV country, not to hot or cold….it’s delusional for the rest of the country. Speaking of delusional people, Porsche outsmarted the anti-oil crowd in Europe with Egas….they use all the latest buzzwords, “carbon neutral” “wind turbines” but what it boils down to…. is that they just recombine the carbon and hydrogen into the same long chain H3C atoms as gasoline. Didn’t PT Barnum have a quote about this. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-12-02/carbon-neutral-e-gasoline-porsche-egas

      • eric

        take it out on the highway and run it wide open like this guy did to check the highway range….lol

        The EQE350 Mercedes EV features a 90.6-kWh battery pack that’s expected to provide a driving range of more than 300 miles.

        Re test: the test driver took the new EQE on the autobahn, which has a 400 mile range, and recorded how much the range dropped….. at top speed on a de-restricted section the range is only about 100 miles.

        You better just use for short trips around town, EV’s range drops a lot on the highway.

        the EQE EV used around 90 Kwh in 100 miles at top speed on the highway. @ $0.14 to $0.27 per kwh it will cost $12.60 to $24.30 for the electricity to go 100 miles.

        Plus the cost of the battery, which is huge, you have to store the electricity in the very, very expensive battery, that is the killer for EV’s right there, the expensive, rapidly wearing out battery.
        the tesla $22,000 battery is used up, worn out in 100,000 miles. this works out to $22.00 per 100 miles it is costing you for the battery.

        Total cost to go 100 miles, $12.60 to $24.30 for the electricity plus $22.00 for the battery (battery cost per 100 miles) = $34.60 to $46.30 to go 100 miles.

        travelling 100 miles in a 50 mpg diesel powered car uses 2 gallons of fuel @ $4.00/gal. = $8.00

        One difference is the diesel powered car doesn’t need a $22,000 battery for storage, it just has a $200 gas tank for energy storage that lasts longer then the car.

        EV’s have to be driven very slowly or they waste even more energy, a tesla was driven at a race track at 10 tenths it used 80 miles range up in 8 miles. (so an 84 mile range becomes 8 mile range?)

        They quote range based on total battery capacity, but………you can only use 60% of the battery’s capacity, between 20% and 80%. under 20% you have a lot less power and can damage the battery, over 80% takes far too long to charge, has to be slow charged or battery will be damaged.

        Re: city/highway fuel economy:

        What if it is really cold out?
        In not ideal conditions the range can drop a lot, if it is very cold range can drop 50%, if you used windshield wipers, the electric heater, the rear defroster, headlights, stereo, etc., the highway range will drop even more then 50%, instead of 100 miles now it is 50 miles or less x 60% useable battery capacity = 30 miles ?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BSdq-MpPdg&t=113s

    • I used to go there once in a while, it had low level knowledge, analysis, commentary, pretty useless….it was entertaining to see how stupid they were…then it got worse…. pumping EV’s….if you went there and fought with the EV nuts you would probably get banned…it would screw up their ESG cash….

      maybe they are smart and get ESG cash….lol…….start a site…pump EV’s…get ESG cash….simple….

      you can spread truth about EV’s here because eric doesn’t get ESG cash….he has ethics..

    • I am vegan. I only eat 100% vegetable based protein. Grass fed beef.

      That’s the egas analogy. Wait petroleum is dead dinosaurs, coal is dead ferns. All the carbon came from the atmosphere. Voila carbon neutral. Fill it up.

    • Former Jalopnik reader here too; I abandoned them and The Truth About Cars when the latter parted company with Bertel Schmidt, despite him having a pretty far left stance on most things as far as I could tell. Both sites were pushing woke ideology, including the EV gospel, more and more and I was finding both less and less informative or interesting.

  8. Back in the day when YT was worth its weight in gold, there would be every kind of video uploaded to be viewed.

    If you search for Youtube videos from Russia, you can view all kinds of traffic and travel on the back road highways in Russia.

    One video had a horse-drawn chopped down car to the rear panels and wheels, a ‘firewall’ with a makeshift windshield, two ports for reins, a horse harnessed to a hitch to the half vehicle making its way down the road. Hilarious.

    Solved the problem, you replace the engine with a horse. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh, so on with the trip we go. More or less a natural evolution from a buckboard to a cushioned seat to sit on. Have to make do with what you’ve got. Hay works in place of fuel. A self-driving vehicle, the horse is better than some lidar nonsense. The horse can see, fercryinoutloud.

    What about that oil? Russia has plenty, uses 4 million barrels per day, produces 10 million per day, 6,000,000 available for export, times 75 USD per barrel, 450,000,000 dollars per day for Putin.

    365 * 450 000 000 = 164 250 000 000 dollars per year in crude oil sales to the world market, crude oil has to be the most fungible commodity on the planet, no problem finding buyers.

    Not many arguments there, is there?

    Obviously, Putin is making fools of the West.

    You want vaccines? I’ll give you vaccines!

    That’s the way it goes moving west.

    Gotta be the richest cat alive. That is a problem.

    A trip in the WABAC machine is possible.

    Teamsters vandalized the first oil pipeline constructed of wood channels, they wanted to haul oil by the 45/42 after the slosh gallon barrel, pipelines interfered with the bottom line.

    Hire the railroads to haul oil, assemble an oil tanker with railroad car trucks, four wheels at each end of the oil tanker on steel wheels, articulate them, the teamsters can be hung out to dry.

    Lots of competition hauling crude oil from when it could be hauled from the pump to the refinery to crack it all.

    John D. Rockefeller solved the problem by enlisting the railroads to do the job.

    Standard Oil got its name because John D. Rockefeller figured out how to distill crude oil, refine, so the kerosene was not volatile, thus Standard Oil. Praise him, condemn him, he made your world a better place to live.

    Thank Gulf Oil, Texaco, Union Oil, Mobil, Valero, Citgo, Marathon, and Pennzoil, all of them. You should be grateful and thankful. Otherwise, by now, your life expectancy would be 25 years shorter. You’d be dead.

    Much of the Kerosene refined early on in the oil refining process was volatile, not safe, burned your house down. All of a sudden, it’s all on fire. Not good.

    Five barrels per day was the maximum amount each day for oil refiners in the beginning.

    Herman Frasch became a partner, a chemist, who discovered how to remove sulfur from malodorous crude oil, ‘skunk’ oil. Stunk up the house.

    John D. Rockefeller bought 6,000,000 barrels of malodorous oil for 20 cents per barrel. 1.2 million dollars invested, then later, Standard Oil was born. Herman Frasch distilled all of it free of sulfur, they both made a mint.

    Rockefeller did consider returning to his original business interests, the produce business.

    Be glad he didn’t.

    Be happy Klaus will be gone sooner than later. A blessing in disguise. Good riddance. He’ll be dead and you’ll be happy he is.

    Backstories can change minds.

  9. It’s not that lithium is all that rare. It’s just that there is little that can be economically extracted from the matrix. At the moment, the price of lithium would have to increase about 8x to extract pretty much all we want from seawater. But that means the batteries would be much more expensive, maybe 5x or more.

    You are correct. Those to whom money is no object, including those driving gov’t vehicles, will have their transportation. Everyone else, sucks to be you.

  10. ‘It’s not so much that the future is “electric.”’ — eric

    Understatement of the day. TSLA is getting smashed silly, down to $125 a share … from around $390 as the year began:

    https://tinyurl.com/2x2vu7zu

    Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart?
    It’s a hell of a start, it could be made into a monster
    If we all pull together as a teeeeeeeeeam

    — Pink Floyd, Have a Cigar

  11. Completely off topic, but has anyone tried spray foam insulation for their chicken coop? The temperatures are supposed to get down to around 10 degrees here and I want to make sure the chickens are comfortable.

    • Hi RG,

      Yes, I have – but you’ll want to avoid it being exposed where the birds may peck at/eat it. I used it to seal/insulate my last coop and then nailed a piece of plywood over that to prevent the birds from getting at it. I also use a heat lamp on nights where temps fall below the mid 20s to prevent frostbitten combs. The really important thing here is to make sure the lamp is secure. My neighbor’s coop burned to the ground because a bird knocked his heat lamp down, into the straw…

    • Imho, this is one of the best articles about cold weather & chicken coops, and why I decided not to insulate:

      https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/cold-weather-poultry-housing-and-care.72010/

      Type the word, ‘insulation’ into their search box & find many more good ones, they probably discuss it.

      I entered ‘spray foam insulation’ and I noticed, ‘What is it with Chickens & Styrofoam??(rant)’ and this comment:
      “Once they find it…… they tell everyone else. They won’t quit.”

      It gets below zero often here. I do not insulate & have not lost a chicken yet. They look comfortable enough but egg production has taken a serious nose dive since the highs are 10 degrees.

    • Hi RG, I used a heat lamp with a Thermo-cube switch plug. Turned on at 35 and off at 45. My coop was pretty small and a 200w heat lamp did the trick even in the teens.
      I though it was more important to keep their water bowl from freezing than the low temps harming the birds which I doubt it would.

      • RE: “to keep their water bowl from freezing”

        …In case anyone wanted to know.
        I thought I had that all locked up. It got down to 8 or 10 degrees below zero last night and this morning there was ~ 3″ of ice on top of the chickens 4 gallon rubber bowl.

        I don’t know why it partially failed. It’s rated at -20 degrees, thermostatically controlled, using only 80 watts.
        ‘K&H Manufacturing Perfect Bucket Heater With Cord Clip’

        The shining stars so far are the green ‘Farm Innovators 3 Gallon Heated Flat Back Bucket’ and the smaller pet bowl versions.

        I guess the lesson is: Always check your heated water at least daily?

  12. Stay warm my friends. Here in NC, we’re fixing to get water pipe busting temps tomorrow night, and gusts of wind up to 40 mph. I appreciate you, Mr. Eric Peters, and this growing community.
    One thing that comes to my mind time and again, is that everything is energy, energy is everything. Whether it is gas, coal, wood or food, life feeds upon energy. Energy is life. If you are going to save the planet by riding your bicycle, you are going to need more food. You cannot get something from nothing.
    I talked to a woman who gave up her wood stove, because she didn’t want to produce smoke, she wanted to be environmentally friendly. What I attempted to convey to her is that life requires burning, whether it be wood, coal, gas, calories from our food. We live to burn, we burn to live. It is like vegetarians giving up meat, to eat plants which consume meat, putting themselves below plants on the food chain. Delusions are everywhere.

          • Eric,

            Those who are pushing banning natural gas to “Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaave the planet from climate change” are truly insane. I’m sure they’ll try to BAN wood stoves and fireplaces as well, no matter how many people DIE as a result of their policies via freezing to death in a cold winter we’re expected to have.

            • “While the EPA did introduce stricter regulations regarding wood-burning stoves and open fireplaces in 2014, the usage of these appliances is not outright banned in the US. However, on the state and local levels, different jurisdictions have banned wood-burning appliances, especially in California. […]

              Some examples include:

              Puget Sound, Washington […] you have to watch the opacity of the smoke from your chimney, follow town guidance on when you can or can’t burn, and avoid selling or buying uncertified wood-burning appliances.

              [and, of course] Bay Area, California: This area has completely banned all wood-burning appliances in 2015 for any newly constructed homes. […]

              In 2014, the EPA introduced increased restrictions on wood stoves. This applied to a vast majority of wood stoves in existence and created higher standards for emissions. Currently, when a person is looking to install a new wood stove, they must purchase one that is EPA certified.

              At the city and town level, remember there are tens of thousands of them in the US, and each town can adopt its own rules regarding the banning or allowance of wood-burning appliances.”…

              https://fireplacetips.com/are-wood-stoves-and-fireplaces-banned/

              I did Not know that.

              That website has a link to a big EPA page, ‘Ordinances and Regulations for Wood-Burning Appliances’ listing a whole slew of Fed & State regs.

              “Note that this is not a comprehensive list of State actions — it is meant to provide examples.”

              • Yeah, up here, Helot, we are always getting dinged by the EPA for our air quality. Combined temperature inversions, and lack of wind in town, and town sitting in a bowl. Then, you have the two military bases helping out, as well. The borough did a wood-stove exchange programme a few years ago. When the air quality is bad, you are not supposed to use your wood burning stove, unless it is your primary source of heat. I do not know if the EPA Nazis, or someone from the borough is going to fly over and check and make sure you comply or not. At -40 friggin’ below, people don’t give a crap what the EPA says, and just want to stay warm, especially with the Feds going to war over our energy, and doubling (and tripling) our fuel prices. The EPA is one of those worthless, alphabet soup agencies that should have died on the vine a long time ago.

          • That’s a good thought: “I have had to open windows to cool things down!”

            And, a good goal to strive for.

            I’ll be thinking of that while doing a first burn on a new wick in my backup kerosene heater. Love these things. An ok consolation prize in place of a wood stove or insert, for the time being.

            ‘CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF KEROSENE HEATER WICKS’

            http://www.milesstair.com/Kero_Heater_wicks.html

  13. ‘There is very little to no effort being made to make electric vehicles affordable.’ — eric

    Well, Eeeeeeeeelon is doing his best — by necessity:

    ‘Tesla is offering US consumers $7,500 to take delivery of its two highest-volume models before year-end, adding to indications the carmaker is struggling with demand.

    ‘The discount on new Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport utility vehicles is double what the company was offering earlier this month. It mirrors an anticipated change in how much of a tax credit certain consumers will be eligible for early next year.’ — Bloomberg

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-offers-7-500-discount-150010821.html

    Eeeeeeeeelon’s plight is also known as ‘screwed coming and going.’

    First, the militarized, inflation-wracked economy is sliding into recession (bad enough). But also, the EeeVeeee bubble has definitively popped.

    It’s all over but the cryin’ …

  14. I’ve not seen these movies, but the images I’ve seen fit our perverse world.
    Physics are not a suggestion, everything else is a circlejerk. It was hilarious seeing (I think Jalopnik) having an article discussing battery powered plane uptake and development being hindered by physics, you don’t say.

    • Battery Airplanes? Nope! (MIT Technology Review)

      When it comes to airplanes, batteries are the killer: too heavy, too bulky. Energy density, in other words. (And that electricity is probably fossil-fuel created anyway.)

      Reserve requirements could severely limit the true range of electric planes. A plane needs extra capacity to circle the airport for 30 minutes in case it can’t land right away, and it must also be able to reach an alternative airport 100 km (60 miles) away in an emergency.

      When you take all that into account, the usable range of a 19-seat plane goes from about 160 miles to about 30 miles. For a larger aircraft like the 100-seat planes that Wright is building, it’s less than six miles.

      the unstable batteries should never be allowed in a passenger aircraft as when one explodes everyone is dead.

      https://www.masterresource.org/deep-decarbonization/battery-airplanes-nope/?fbclid=IwAR335PPuOBDmK-zxS15aLD3WWb9L3BxV5h8tYCVRpVd153T65qrl_JICtmA

  15. EV technology as it is currently proffered is a huge step backward in the evolutionary advancement of mankind. Dirty, non renewable, and expensive. It affirms my belief that mankind has become dumber. How long before something like the proper disposal of waste becomes unmanageable? It may be moot, as the lunatics in charge of the asylum seem hell bent on one of two outcomes. Full spectrum world dominance, or Nuclear winter. Reminds me of a great song

    Here I am in the 21st century
    Have to say it ain’t as cool as I’d hoped it would be
    Ain’t no man on the moon, nobody on Mars
    Where the hell is my flying car
    Ain’t nothing like a tele-transporter so far.

    Lights out in the heart of America
    No love in the time of Hysteria
    Its head for the hills everyman for himself
    Nobody helping out nobody else
    Ain’t the way the Maharishi said it’d be
    In the 21st century

    Steve Earle, with the dukes and duchess’s

  16. Every proponent of EVs is in denial as to why we didn’t have them sooner. “It’s all big Detroit holding back the technology!” they exclaimed back in the 1990s. Granola bearded sandal wearers were converting mini pickups to EVs using 6V golf car lead acid batteries and converted AC motors with manual speed controllers. Then GM tested the EV1 (in extremely electric friendly cities like Phoenix and Tucson) to gauge public reaction and find out how they performed in the world. Turned out the first ones, which used lead acid batteries, only got about 75 miles out of a charge. Great for runs to the quick-e-mart down the street, and maybe picking up the kids from school, but not much else. Then they changed to nickel-metal hydride cells, which weren’t much better (and NiMH self-discharge is terrible even without phantom loads). But we’re told the test subjects loved them! There were documentaries produced, with vocal lessees angrily complaining that they had to return them to GM after the lease was up. According to the Wikipedia page:

    “By 2002, 1,117 EV1s had been produced, though production had ended in 1999, when GM shut down the EV1 assembly line.”

    So a thousand cars out of however many millions of vehicles on the US roads? In areas that don’t get snow, not much rain, and an extremely self-selected group of testers (who had skin in the game)? And it still sucked because of the electricity storage medium.

    Again from the Wiki: “The documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? presents evidence that GM stuck with plans to cancel and scrap the car, despite apparent public interest.”

    Sure the public is interested in electric cars. I’m interested in electric cars, I’ve been following them for years. Until lithium batteries the big bet was on hydrogen fuel cells, a well-established tech that’s been around since the beginning of the electric age. But outside of their use in manned spaceflight they really aren’t used much because the cell membrane will foul and degrade quickly, in a matter of weeks. Not something you want for a vehicle that you’re paying for over 7 years. Some progress has been made, but at chemistry and materials science rate, not Moore’s law. And of course there’s the problem of where you get the hydrogen, how to move the hydrogen around, and that pesky “Oh the humanity!” public perception issue.

    Seems to me that the ideal vehicle to “save the planet” would be a plug in hybrid. Just the fact that they aren’t elegible for tax breaks pretty much shows that they’re a realistic option. And there’s still all the lithium problems too.

    Here’s an idea: How about flywheels? Audi tested them on their LeMans vehicles, the TDIs that finished first, second and third in their classes. They store energy for short periods, can dump that energy into a drivetrain quickly, are light (compared to battery packs) and compact, taking up about the same space as a donut spare tire. Mated to an Atkinson cycle engine they’d probably do fairly well at improving fuel economy by absorbing the peaks demands and letting the engine run in the power band.

    • Hi RK,

      I drove an EV1 (also called Impact) back in the ’90s when GM had them available for journalists to test. The thing was useless as other than a short-distance, low-speed commuter and it was exorbitantly expensive, some $35,000 in mid-1990s dollars.

      Does it sound familiar?

      • So you’ve always been a Debbie-Downer then? LOL

        A car that doesn’t move is an exhibit, not transportation. I could buy some really nice art pieces for that 1990s $35K that take up much less room. Hell, for today’s $60,000+ I could buy a used car and a DSLR to capture, edit and print a few hundred nice landscapes, and have a good time doing it too. But not if I have to wait at the charging station.

    • ‘Seems to me that the ideal vehicle to “save the planet” would be a plug in hybrid.’ — ReadyKilowatt

      Great minds think alike:

      ‘Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda said he is questioning whether electric vehicles should be pursued exclusively, comments that reflect a growing uneasiness about how quickly car companies can transition.

      ‘The world’s biggest auto maker has said it sees hybrids, a technology it invented with the debut of the Toyota Prius in the 1990s, as an important option when EVs remain expensive and charging infrastructure is still being built out.

      “People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority,” Mr. Toyoda said to reporters during a visit to Thailand. “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”

      “Because the right answer is still unclear, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to just one option,” Mr. Toyoda said. Over the past few years, Mr. Toyoda said, he has tried to convey this point to industry stakeholders, including government officials—an effort he described as tiring at times.’ — WSJ

      https://archive.ph/BTZw6

      ‘Tiring’ – no doubt. One might as well lecture the ducks floating on a lake. They’ll watch intently, wondering if you brought bread crumbs, but not a word will penetrate their tiny minds. That’s how it is ‘dialoguing’ with climate cultists. They just can’t hear you.

      • What should be celebrated as progress is rejected because it is only better instead of perfect. If you handed a Prius to a car owner of the 1950s they’d be amazed, even with 25¢ gasoline. They’d still buy the big Chevy but it would probably get some people thinking about what’s possible. And perhaps an engineer out in Warren MI would start tinkering with hybrids.

        The whole electric automobile concept is a giant “moon shot” program. Trouble is, the moon shot wasn’t practical, consumed 4% of the US GDP (at the all-time peak of the US economy), and ultimately set unrealistic expecations for every engineering project since. Converting all transporation to electric makes putting a man on the moon look simple in comparison. And the Apollo budget was decided by Congress, not the public. NASA is a popular agency but imagine if they had to hold a PBS-style pledge drive every year. Clearly people are voting for electrics with their wallets and choosing internal combustion.

  17. Even if the magical battery appears that can be fully recharged in five minutes there is no way in hades that there will ever be a grid infrastructure that will be able to handle such sudden massive load. The lights will dim across the USSA, just before they go out for good.

  18. We’re getting the blizzard right now. With the light fluffy round pellet snowflakes. Just watched a snowplow drive by, wondered how that would work if they were battery powered.

    “The rest of us will drive very little, if we drive at all.”

    So, too, the snowplows.

    • My mistake, we were getting the fluffy round pellet snowflakes at daybreak, just was out in it, it’s the light fluffy blobs coming down now. The kind where, 20 minutes after the snowplow goes through, with the 35 m.p.h. winds, in many sections of the road you cannot even tell a snowplow went through.

      Yup, self-driving electric vehicles are the wave of the future, …a very herky-jerky dark one.

      Can’t wait til the 50 m.p.h. winds get here Friday.
      Fun times.

      • The blizzard is over. Looks like people Eastward might get some, but boy, was that ever the shortest blizzard.

        It was wayy overhyped by the TeeVee, didn’t get near the amount of snow forecast.

        They were, however; right about the cold wind.
        “Now we move on to acts 2 and 3 of our winter storm, wind, and cold.”

  19. That’s the ultimate goal of those pushing EVs; forcing the masses out of driving a car altogether. I saw recently that an unelected bureaucrat at the Oregon DEQ decreed that Oregon will go the way of California and BAN the sale of new gas powered vehicles by 2035. If these unelected bureaucrats and technocrats aren’t stopped, it’s only a matter of time before they decree a BAN on ALL gas powered vehicles under guise of “Climate change”. Why, I’m sure the Biden Thing would LOVE to make such a decree as well.

  20. ‘Government cannot mandate the cost of the materials needed to make them be lowered.’ — eric

    Indeed. But gov can mandate their cost to rise. For instance, by appropriating one hundred billion dollars in a single year for war profiteers to produce missiles and ammo, to be exploded to smithereens by our forever-friends, the noble Ukies.

    That’s sarcasm, of course. Last night’s degrading spectacle of a foreign-occupied parliament orking and clapping their flippers for Mister Z was the US fedgov’s declaration of independence from America.

    They don’t work for us no more. Nor do we owe them the slightest obligation of ‘compliance.’

    Are you gonna cry when I’m squeezin’ the rye
    Takin’ all I can get, no regrets
    When I openly lie
    And leave only money

    — The Animals, It’s My Life

  21. The price of lithium is 552,500 Yuan. Seven Yuan to the dollar, the price per ton is almost 80,000 dollars.

    It is doubtful you’ll even want to buy an EV. If you can afford one and buy, you’ll probably regret it.

    Last night, 535 members of Congress were given a healthy dose of lithium to be tamed some. They still jumped up and down and cheered and screamed and went ballistic just to hear some nut thank them for 45 billion dollars.

    You voted for it all, so it is your fault that Russia invaded its own territory to retake what is rightfully theirs.

    The criminals in charge fell for Zelensky’s propaganda. He wore an army green T-shirt, which was blatant propaganda.

    They’re all brainwashed, the only answer.

    How come he’s not at the front lines helping?

    How can this end well? It won’t.

    “You got news for me, I got nothing for you, don’t pin your blues on me, just go ahead and do whatever you wish to.” – John Prine, Quiet Man

  22. EVs are a deep pile of equine fecal matter. Their claimed “purpose”, climate change, is a much deeper one, topped off with gobs of male bovine fecal matter. There’s not one iota of truth in any of it, EVs or “climate change”. Well, except for the truth that the Psychopaths In Charge don’t want you going where you want when you want. Moving targets are harder.

    • Hi John, re:”climate change” it’s interesting how we’re about to get one of the coldest Christmas weeks ever despite all that evil CO2 that was responsible for the “global warming” that isn’t happening. I hate our overlords with a passion, they just can’t leave us alone to go about our own lives as we see fit.

      • Mike in Boston,
        I suspect a LOT of people will be praying for some global warming before spring. Ten below at my house in mid-Missouri this morning, with a forecast high of six above.
        Advice from an old plumber. If your water pipes freeze, don’t thaw them unless you can keep them thawed. They will just freeze again, and stretch out your water pipe, again. Eventually failing. Plastic not so much as copper, but the plastic has a limit too.
        The coldest temp I ever saw here was on Christmas Eve, 1980 I believe. Thirty below. Twenty below at the neighbor’s house on top of the hill.

        • And my water froze up. I spent most of Christmas day trying to figure out where and how. Only later to hear a newscast that said the water main had frozen. Probably a 6″ main buried 3′ or more in the ground.

  23. Hey Eric, it was nice hearing you talk with David Knight. And, it was nice putting a face with your name. I admit I am a bit weird, but for some reason, you look a bit like fiction author, Dean Koontz (one of my favourites). 🙂 Your commentary on EV’s (and the more I learn about them) make it even less likely that anyone of us in a cold climate are ever going to want one. You are both right: TPTB eventually just want all of us walking everywhere, because they want it to where driving is something only the right and privileged will be “allowed” to enjoy.

  24. Go look at the background of the individual who took delivery of the first F150 Lightning last Spring.

    Deep State, complete with a tour through one of the military commands in Tampa which seem to be a magnet for individuals with a “flexible morality” as the protagonist put it in “Grosse Pointe Blank”.

  25. Perhaps the solution is a national grid of catenary lines on every street. Then each car can have a pantograph or one of those hockey stick things like on a bumper car. No lithium, no problem. Free public electricity. Everyone drives a trolley. Ding! Ding!

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