When the power goes out, the lights go out. Break out the flashlights and candles. But it rarely means you cannot go out.
Unless, of course, you have an electric car – and you assumed the power would be on, to charge it up. Then – per the Toothless Man in Deliverance – you ain’t a goin’ nowhere, city boy.
On the other hand, a power outage has zero effect on your car or truck’s ability to take you somewhere – like to work, for instance – if it is not an electric car (or truck). Even if its “range” is low because you only left a couple gallons in the tank, it’s not a problem – especially if you had the foresight to keep a few gallons of gas in a jug for just-in-case.
It is effectively impossible to keep on hand for just-in-case the energy equivalent of five gallons of gas in the form of electricity, to get a discharged electric vehicle going when there’s no power to get it going.
Which is why the Ford Mach e I am test driving this week isn’t going anywhere for awhile. It had very little range (charge) left last night when I parked it – and plugged it in – assuming the power would be on and that the car would have recovered sufficient charge (and so, range) to be viable for driving rather than waiting.
But an ice storm intervened.
The power is still out as I type this on Friday morning, using power supplied to my computer via my gas-powered generator. I could perhaps use the generator to power the EV, but that wouldn’t be very “green” of me. And – regardless – it would entail an unexpected wait.
I had assumed the Mach e would be ready to drive this morning. This can be a very inconvenient assumption, if the power goes out.
The Mach e isn’t going anywhere, for awhile.
And neither would I be able to – were it not for the fact that I own a truck that runs on gas. It is always ready to go, whether the power is on – or off. And even if I had parked it with very little “range” remaining, in the form of gas in its tank, I would be able to add range very easily – because I always keep an extra five gallons of gas around for just-in-case. Pour it in – the job takes a couple of minutes – and I am, literally good to go.
But if I didn’t have my truck – if I owned an electric vehicle like the Mach e – I would be out o’ luck.
At least until the power comes back on. Sometimes, that does not happen for several days in my area.
This bears thinking about – or should, especially in view of the paradoxical fact that electric vehicles make power outages more likely on account of the fact that electric vehicles draw a lot of power – for which demand there is already insufficient capacity. This problem may compound on account of the not-well-known fact that electric vehicles need to be kept plugged in even after they have fully charged up because otherwise they will lose charge, on account of the power drawn by the battery pack’s temperature control system.
You can leave your gas-engined vehicle parked outside in the freezing cold. The cold will have no meaningful effect on the chemical energy you have available in the tank. If the tank was full when you parked it last night, it will be full when you go to drive it this morning.
But the more relevant scenario is this one:
You leave it parked with just a couple of gallons in the tank – because you didn’t have the time last night on the way home to stop for a fill-up. Or you just forgot to. The point is, you didn’t have to.
Your gas engined vehicle will still have the same range that it had when you parked it because those couple of gallons in the tank do not evaporate overnight. But if you parked your electric vehicle outside, in the cold, with very little range remaining, there may be no range left the following morning because of the power consumed overnight by the car, trying to keep the battery from getting too cold.
I observed this happening with the Ford Lightning I test drove last week. It lost an indicated 20 miles of range, just sitting outside (unplugged-in) from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning.
Of course, you could avoid that by just plugging it in before you leave it for the night. But what if – as happened here last night – the power goes out? Perhaps – in our “electrified” future – because so many other electric vehicles were plugged in to the grid, all of them sucking power to keep their batteries from freezing? Now you freeze – if there’s a blackout and your home is heated electrically.
You’re also stuck in your freezing home – because your electric car is range-kaput because the power went out.
Lucky for me, I have my truck – and a five gallon jug of gas. The power can be out all day – and may well be. But I won’t be stuck, even though the Mach e is.
I think I’ll hang on to my truck.
Addendum: The power is still out as of late Friday afternoon and so the Mach e is still inert. But we just came back from a drive into town to get some things at Lowes and so on. If all we’d have to rely on for transportation was the electric car, we’d have been housebound all day.
Possibly tomorrow, too.
Welcome to the “electrified” future of transportation!
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SHTF | BANKS HAVE TILL JAN 1ST TO FIND MISSING $65 TRILLION
have money in the bank?….lol
https://www.bitchute.com/video/PQ8Q5iBSPvqZ/
The danger from spontaneous fires remains, I assume, from all lithium batteries, no? If so, should we not be storing any such powered items away from homes and attached buildings and other vehicles? I also wonder whether homeowners’ and other insurance policies prohibit EVs being parked inside a garage. Btw, NYC already has had a very large number of fires, some fatal, where apartment residents have brought their electric bikes inside.
You know there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to drive their gasoline vehicles when the power is out because the automatic garage door opener wouldn’t work… 🙄
Kilowat…Are you claiming that people are too dumb to realize they can physically LIFT their garage door? I believe that.
This chart, sourced from recurrentauto.com, shows the loss of winter range (versus 70 degrees F ambient) for 13 different EeeVee models:
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/tesla%20zerohedge.jpg?itok=iTysTdQl
For the Mach-E that Eric is currently testing, winter range loss is a harsh minus 30%. Same for the Volkswagen ID.4 (both ‘verified’).
If the dashboard gauge fails to adjust the indicated range down by 30% in cold weather, that’s engineering malpractice, and conceivably the basis for a class-action lawsuit when a few hapless EeeVee victims get frozen, mistakenly thinking they would reach their destination.
Better call Saul …
In the summer of 2008 my neighborhood had a tornado pass through. Electric was out for a week. Still managed to get to work (thank you gas car), and I still had hot showers (thank you natural gas!!). It also made it possible to drive to my brothers to hang out and make dinner (electric stove and oven not operational) when not at work.
Last year 30 hour outage last winter due to weather. About the same thing, but the house was getting cold. Now pricing out a backup generator and when I redo the kitchen, the stove and oven are going to be changed over to natural gas.
That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
This lesson is going to have to come hard for the communists.
The problem with Communists, is that many of them will still blame you because their failed-system well, failed. They will learn hard, but they will try and take the rest of us down with them, simply out of spite and being evil. Stalin to the end would not accept that Communism and Collectivism would not, and did not, work because he refused to take into account human nature, and what happens when you kill (quite literally) the incentive of one to work hard for rewards, and not punishment. Funny how that works-no pun intended. And then again, a friend of mine knew of a couple who came over from then-Soviet Russia, and when the wife walked into the grocery store, and saw (immediately in front of her) the bountiful fruits and vegetables, she literally had to sit down and cry, all-the-while exclaiming repeatedly, “they lied to me”. Some may wake up, but I fear they are the minority.
This made me think of something I saw a couple of days ago. I live in the middle of lefty land, in Mountain View, CA. Our wise town council banned gas powered gardening equipment because Gaia needs to be saved an such. So, the gardeners on my jogging trail had set up a portable generator, into which they plugged in some leaf blowers, trimmers, etc. Now, instead of two guys with trimmers and leaf blowers, you have three guys, one to wheel the generator, as the others are tethered to it for power. It was quite hilarious. The city council assumed that battery powered tools are good enough. This is a common mistake from people who talk about green tech versus using it.
I’m a groundskeeper and maintenance guy for a (private) high school. There is NO battery powered (or electric for that matter) tools powerful or long enough running for any professional (or amateur for that matter) landscaping. In fact our main two riding lawn mowers are diesel powered.
I do have a battery leaf blower for blowing trash out of the (inside gym) bleachers, but it at best will do ten to fifteen minutes per battery. It has about a quarter of the force of my gas powered leaf blower.
For an individual homeowner with a tiny suburban plot of land these lectric gizmos might make some sense. If you have any amount of dirt they cant keep up. Neighbor with only an acre bought an electric riding mower, bragged about how wonderful it was going to be not having to use gas. At least twice now Ive seen the thing sitting in the middle of his field. Don’t know if it died suddenly or his old vaxed brain just needed a break
Recently purchased two new battery sets for my ridged sawzall and drill. The old batteries lasted almost 6 years, weird that they died suddenly within one day of each other. The new batteries came with a new grinder and skill saw, so I now have a complete set of battery powered tools. I can say wholeheartedly that these ridged battery powered tools are exceptional. I’ve beat the hell out of the drill and sawzall and they still work great.
Hi Norman, the break between effective electric landscape tools vs gas is somewhere around 1HP. So yes, hand tools work pretty well and are effective. a very small weedeater and or blower to do small pieces work OK, but anything beyond that and they are no dice.
It;s interesting to hear about OppositeLock’s CA landscapers and how they are getting around the CA ‘no-gas-landscaping equipment’ rules/laws? I would think soon enough, the commercial landscapers are going to have to be exempt? But the loony toons CA gov. probably won’t.
Hi ChrisIn, if I had to chose one electric tool, it would be my saws-all. For most weed eating I use a gas bearcat and walk behind high well trimmer. Being older and weaker now, it would kill me if I had to use a regular gas weed eater. I like the saws-all with a long wood blade for limbing my golden locust and Cyprus trees. I can go to the edge of my property where there is no power, don’t need to fire up the chainsaw, can use the saws-all above my head with one hand, can do twenty-thirty trees on one battery, which works out well.
California is looking more like the real life idiocracy. They still need Monday night rehabitulation though. chances are the only exemptions will be for Government workers.
Reply to OppositeLock:
A buddy’s daughter bought a battery powered snow blower, somehow I get the feeling she’s going to be disappointed. Another buddy’s boss was looking at going all electric at his lawn service company to get the enviro whacko’s business. He claims the new professional grade battery’s will work.
Hi Landru,
In re lawn service: It’s probably going to be the same issue that electric cars force owners to deal with; i.e, the electric mower equipment will “work” – but not for long. Do one lawn, then wait until the things are recharged enough to do the next. Either that or buy multiple devices and keep back-ups charged and ready, doubling (tripling?) the cost of service.
The commercial landscapers who have to or chose to go all electric will have to have tons of spare batteries to do a full day of work. Like a hundred batteries for say 5-10 pieces of equipment for a typical crew. And yes, the cost will be very high and have to passed on to the consumer. So here’s the fun part:
Landscaper A ‘we have all electric’. Cost for service = $200/trip.
Landscaper B ‘gas’. Cost for service = $100/trip.
So then the end-user that thinks E is the way to go to make them feel good, will start complaining “why did my service charge double!!!!”
I’d love to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.
I seen[sic] a video a while back in which this dude bought a $6K or $7K ‘lectric zero turn just for use on his own yard. The area he had to mow was about 2/3s of what the mower was supposed to be able to mow on one charge. When the mower was brand new, it would barely mow the guy’s yard (2/3’s of what it was supposed to be capable of)…. By the time it wasn’t even a year old, the dude would have to mow a little more than half his yard, then let the mower recharge (It takes hours) and then finish the rest of the yard. It was basically a worthless pile of crap at a year-old for a homeowner with a large yard.
I came across a post on one of the soc-nets by a lawn care service owner who converted all his powertools over to electric. The back of his truck had a bank of chargers and plenty of extra batteries. The truck had solar panels on the topper but I think the main charging came from the alternator, driving between jobs.
I’m sure all this is possible, but the upfront cost of all those batteries is crazy, so you’re tying up a lot of capital before you’ve done any work. And not only that, the manufacturers love to change batery tech every few years, so as tools wear out and are replaced, so are the batteries that run them, the chargers etc. So now you have to decide if you want to maintain multiple battery lines or just scrap all the tools for new. This isn’t a minor decision, especially when you’re talking about multiple crews.
RK, solar panels on a trailer won’t do didly to charge those batteries. More of a propaganda effort I guess, or the guy got duped. I’m guessing that even his truck alternator won’t be able to do maybe more than 1 battery at a time, and take a long time.
I am currently experimenting with a solar panel to see if it will maintain a large 24v battery on an excavator. These are two large 12v batteries that require constant maintenance by me or they go flat and then freeze to death if I forget to charge them (even with a disconnect switch). It’s just that I rarely use the machine so I forget all the time.
By the spec’s on the solar panel it should be able to maintain it, but not ‘charge’ them.
“Hidden gas guzzlers”…The wonders of electric cars are turning out to be pie-in-the-sky fantasies.
Massive energy losses from generation, to transmission, to charging and during battery storage are turning electric mobility into a cost nightmare.
“E-cars lose massive amounts of power during charging,” reports the online 24hamburg-de here, citing results of tests conducted on a variety of electric cars of different price classes and sizes by Germany’s ADAC automobile association.
This makes electric cars even more expensive, and less affordable, than previously thought.
The ADAC’s results show, “electricity consumption when charging electric cars is significantly higher than indicated on the consumption displays.”
Manufacturers forgot to tell e-car buyers that lots of energy – about 10% – in fact gets lost during charging and battery storage. there is another 3% daily loss with the car just sitting…
“With a gasoline-powered car, that would be like spilling a few liters when refueling,” says the ADAC.
Apparently. significant energy gets lost by all the electrical systems, from the charging station, to the on-board charger and the drive battery in the car itself.
The ADAC tested electric vehicles were all connected to the same 22-kW wall box at 23 degrees ambient temperature, all under the same conditions. According to the test results: “a 100 kWh battery in a Tesla Model X100D actually requires 108.3 kWh. The Kia e-Niro Spirit requires 72.3 kWh for a 64 kWh battery. Even the Jaguar I-PACE EV400 needs at least 10 kWh more for a 90 kWh battery,” reports 24hamburg.de.
With skyrocketing electricity prices in Germany, these hidden costs are turning out to be substantial. But the news will soon get a lot worse, 24hamburg.de reveals:
“Electricity prices will rise by 320 percent. […] Driving electric cars is and will be more expensive for drivers than previously thought.”
Currently charging rates in German cities are at about 50 euro-cents a kilowatt hour. With a 300% rise, mobility is about to become a luxury only affordable by the rich.
charging a 90 kwh battery @ 50 cents per kwh = 45 euro ($45) @ 2.4 miles per kwh = 216 miles
with price tripling….. @ 1.5 euro per kwh = 135 euro ($135 )
compared to: 2014 Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion diesel, capable of a claimed 73.5 mpg U.S.
216 miles @ 73.5 mpg = 2.9 gallons @ $4.00 = $11.60
216 miles in the ice diesel golf = $11.60
216 miles in the EV = $135.00
At 100,000 miles the EV needs a $22,000 battery replacement….lol
Germany’s once much ballyhooed “Energiewende” is unraveling, and turning into a grand technological fiasco.
https://notrickszone.com/2022/08/16/charging-electric-cars-like-spilling-liters-of-petrol-hidden-losses-during-charging-are-huge/?fbclid=IwAR2MF2zkItF-7itptpz7jsZqEKPy3rkc0m7ke1dcWeSiKGzUl6Ks-6lnSfY
Friend of mine who does tree work has an electric chainsaw, it works well – for about ten minutes. He has a bunch of extra batteries constantly charging but he also has regular gas saws for big jobs.
As far as battery snowblowers go I can’t imagine them working on anything other than a an inch or two that you could probably clear with a broom. Try using one in Buffalo 😆 My gas snowblower will gag on heavy wet snow if it’s deep enough, especially at the front of the driveway where the city plows pile it up.
Below 90% charge EV performance keeps dropping, at 10% charge it is down quite a bit. ICE cars on a quarter tank are quicker because they got lighter.
Anyone see this yet?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/electric-vehicle-charging-oslo-norway-now-twice-expensive-filling-gas-powered-vehicle/
This is what most concerns me. Mother nature contributes to power outages, sometimes for days to weeks. How does one seek medical treatment, get food, get to work, or get to warmth and shelter if the battery is low?
Winter is worse since the battery will use power to keep viable.
The real concern is if the power is purposely shut down for a notorious purpose. All that needs done is to cut the power for a few days and your car is dead and so is your ability to get anywhere.
Everybody get ready to sing,
When the lights go out…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwmdykGn-hE
“The zeitgeist trend for a new generation
A new radiation
And everyone laughs
And everyone laughs”
This song also popped into my head when I read title!
Haha, James. I’ve always said that EP Autos draws the finest people. 🙂
I always think of this one (yes I am aware that it is the opposite).
Someday we will build things again, including power plants.
In the meantime, keep the home fires burning.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zVg97yrjkwA&feature=shares
They can pry my ICE vehicles from my cold, dead hands.
Ditto, Blake –
We were talking about this all the way down the mountain and back… in my truck. No having to ponder (endlessly) how far we can go and how long we’ll have to wait. And when we got back, just park the truck. Not even the small hassle of plugging it in (and tripping over the cord).
Dead, cold hands indeed!
Cold dead hands as well, Eric, if you overestimate the range, and you get stranded in said ice storm…
Whatcha said, I also got a few guns, big iron and boomsticks to deal with the AGW’s, so it’d be harder to get it from me
Peters, you’re so obsessed with charging!
😉
Careful, don’t get him riled up !
Hi Nunz,
And with being able to move, too!
But Peters! C’mon, man! Isn’t being all high-tech and ‘saving the planet’ enough? I mean, ya can’t ‘save the planet’ if you’re driving around in 6000 lb. “truck” that gets 16MPG! See? If ya think like a lkibrul, these things make sense! 🙂
How fortuitous the car review guy’s power goes out while reviewing an electric car. LOLROFL
I am convinced these electric car contraptions are just a flash in the pan, that the deep state of lunacy will be overturned by a tsunami of economic unfortunate incidents that forces our cra cra society back to it’s senses.
I see that Russia is loading it’s nuclear missile silos as response to Biden sending Ukraine Patriot missiles. Won’t be long now until everyone in London and D.C. are vaporized. At that point, you will be glad you are still alive and upwind, and don’t own some damn electric car when the lights are put out for some time.
Yukon,
Hopefully nothing of value will be lost.
so what happens if it’s super cold out and the power is out for a week?
does the EV battery freeze hard and explode or what?
I wonder if anything happens if the power is out just long enough, and it’s cold enough that the batteries freeze (is it: the lower the battery is discharged, the more likely it is to freeze & at higher temps? Idk) the car was left plugged in, the power comes back on & starts charging a frozen battery.
I read in some regular car battery charging manuals ~ Do Not charge a frozen battery.
I never tried doing that, so I’m unexperienced if anything bad occurs as a result. Is it a case of, YMMV?
Or, is there a sensor which prevents the EV battery from being charged while frozen?
helot,
But didn’t you know? Consequences don’t matter. Or there would be no EV batteries to worry about.
Different technologies/apples and oranges. In your lead acid battery if you freeze it you bulge the case and damage (crush and distort and break)the delicate latticework lead plates.
Lithium ion doesn’t have a liquid electrolyte quite like that. I’ve left my laptop outside in -30f weather before. Once it warms back up it’s fine. May lose some capacity, I’ve never thought to check.
Good luck trying to evacuate from a forest fire in California. I’ve seen videos of people driving down the road with flames on both sides, escaping by the skin of their teeth. Now imagine being in an EV that couldn’t be charged because the grid was overloaded or down; you’d be turned into a crispy critter before you made it out. I foresee class action lawsuits coming against the car manufacturers by the surviving family members.
Didn’t that happen in California a few years back, Mike, when they had their fires (cannot remember which ones, though)? Only when California turned the power out because of the fires, people in their EV’s got stranded on the side of the road when their juice ran out, and with no way to “charge” it-whoops. Hard lesson to learn, indeed, and at a really bad time, too.
Hi Shadow, I think you’re right that it did happen; don’t recall exactly which fire but there’s been so many over the years I’m surprised that anyone still lives there.
An ICE storm moves in and then there is no power. Kind of ironic, it is.
Last spring a snow storm moved through a major area, more than a thousand power poles toppled, took weeks to restore power to farms and small communities. Crews from several power companies worked overtime to make it happen.
Ventusky dot com has temperatures for the entire world. In Siberia and Mongolia, it is more than 30 below zero.
Next week in the US there will be some cold temps.
Yes, Drumpish, it is supposed to dip down to -55 below on the 20th up here. The last thing I would want is a stupid, EV. I rather like knowing that the full tank of gas in my vehicle is still the same, full tank of gas I have the next time I go out there, whether the power is on or not. Oh, and as an added bonus, the heated seats (and steering wheel-he hee) still work, too, and I do not have to freeze my a** in the cabin when driving somewhere, in the hopes of “saving juice” to get somewhere. These EV’s are going to be a hard sell in cold climate states, but I am sure TPTB will be more than happy to force them on us, or just kill us out right when the time comes. They always were more than happy the sacrifice the rest of us for their cause.
install a diesel heater in an EV….so if the battery goes dead you don’t freeze to death as quickly…..lol
Why do these vehicles measure battery capacity in miles? Kilowatts are what the battery holds and what you purchase. By displaying range whether in MPG or MKW, the operator has a fictitious number.
Percentage of charge remaining is used and understood by billions of cell phone users. Too sensible I suppose for a largely impractical machine.
Too hard to fake the numbers.
Also, hurricanes. Can you imagine the load on the grid on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks charge up so people can flee the tempest? There’s a lot our ruling class hasn’t taken into account or they simply don’t care, which I think is more likely. And if Tesla can extend the range of its “cars” with over-the-air updates, what’s to stop them from stopping your car in its tracks. Sorry, the grid can’t handle your car charging and we’re all-in on population reduction, so good luck with that.
The problem I have with EVs is twofold: One, as proven by Eric’s excellent reviews and explanatory videos, living with an EV is worse than living with my ex-wife. Two, governments are tipping their fingers on the scale to ensure that all the new cars and trucks will be nothing but EVs. If you want to have a silly Tesla, knock yourself out, but don’t force me to drive one of those leaden, glorified golf carts on steroids.
The Left loons have been braying about “global warming” and “climate change” forever. I remember in the 1980s Ted Danson said we only had 15 years to save the planet. Well Ted, we’re still here.
‘The Mach e isn’t going anywhere, for awhile.’ — eric
Or ever, maybe. In the first nine months of 2022, Ford sold 28,089 of them … in its second calendar year of production.
Is that a lot? Not compared to this:
‘Ford is in the process of building several new plants, including battery and component facilities, that will enable it to increase its production of electric vehicles to the tune of two million units annually by 2026.
‘As The Blue Oval focuses on building those facilities, it’s targeting 200,000 units of annual Mach-E production by 2023, while more than doubling Mach-E battery supply by the end of next year.’
https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/ford-mustang-mach-e-sales-numbers-figures-results-third-quarter-2022-q3/
Amping up from a projected 38,000 Mach-e’s in 2022 to 200,000 in 2023 sounds … improbable.
As for two million EeeVees by 2026, Ford is frickin’ high on fentanyl. A jolt of Narcan (or a show-stopping recession) can fix that fast.
I don’t own any Ford shares. But if I did, I’d be puking them out as fast I could pound the ‘Sell’ button. Ford’s massive, delusional capacity expansion to produce white-elephant EeeVees is gonna ream their ass hard, leaving a gaping blue oval where their sphincter used to be.
JIm, your forgetting that you will be forced to buy an EV, whether you like it or not. The only reason our car manuf. are diving in head first on EV is because a back-room deal has been made that will guarantee their ‘investment’ is not wasted.
How it will be forced remains to be seen. My guess is it will start with ever-increasing registration fee’s for ICE cars, ‘because you are a polluter’.
ChrisIN,
I can’t imagine how people can be forced to buy a thing they can’t afford. Without the massive effort of subsidy and regulatory destruction of their competition, there would not even be enough market for them to justify mass production. Much less keep car sales where they are. It’s car maker suicide, and they won’t all survive it. If any. The F150 Lightening that Eric just tested has gone up in price, again. Now 40% higher than it was at introduction. The goal is not getting you into an EV, it’s getting you out of your car.
‘I can’t imagine how people can be forced to buy a thing they can’t afford.’ — John Kable
A few years ago, the US fedgov tried to force people to buy health coverage. ‘It’s a tax, not a penalty,’ said Chief ‘Justice’ John RINO Roberts.
Whatever it was, Clowngress repealed it.
No way in hell can Big Gov make people buy EeeVees. If you don’t have the money, they aren’t going to give you one.
Today, Ford’s shares are getting whacked almost 6 percent, down more than GM and TSLA. Mach-E price hikes are bad news for Ford. Higher price; lower volume. The desert mirage of two million EeeVees a year by 2026 is evaporating as we approach it.
Auto execs failed to realize that GovCo’s EeeVee Kool-Aid was laced with strychnine. Now they’re starting to feel queasy.
Hi Jim,
I could see the Mach e being appealing to a fair number of people (not as many as Ford expects) for around $35k – competitive with higher trims of other small crossovers. But $50k is absurd.
Electric vehicles are expensive vehicles. Much too expensive to be other than relatively low volume specialty cars for people who have the means to pay a premium price for the EV’s quick acceleration and “coolness” (the chief draws). Most people have to think about price and practicality. It’s not an optional consideration.
PS: Power’s still out – and the Mach e is still inert!
That 40% is since introduction in 2021. I have been notified of more than a handful of 20-30% higher prices yoy for things going forward into 2023 in just the last month. First, they said inflation was “transitory”, now it has “peaked.” Sure. On 0hedge the other day, there was a piece quoting JP Morgan analysts about how their experience with “emerging market” clients tells them that current rates of inflation take at least 10 years to return to “normal.”
“ I can’t imagine how people can be forced to buy a thing they can’t afford “
Oh they’re going to give it their commie best here in WA! Reading the comments makes me ill, there is no convincing the climate cultists – what a bunch of brainwashed fools:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/wa-sets-2030-goal-to-phase-out-gas-cars/#comments
bribed with ESG money, automakers are building, pushing electric vehicles,
Amazon is rolling out electric delivery vehicles.
https://www.amazonelectricdelivery.com
So that overnight charge that was cut short might also affect your 2 day shipping. Imagine when these things become normal across service fleets, delivery, etc. Now when the power goes out not only will you be stuck at home, your provisions might be stuck at the loading dock. Better hope the stuff in the fridge doesn’t spoil.
All I have to say is; when the power goes out, arm yourself. And it will in the very near future.
I have considered getting something like a Gem, to use as a commuter, which (I believe) uses good old-fashioned lead acid batteries (I might have an inside track on sourcing replacements).
Range and speed are limited but should be ok for around town.
I am unclear on how much it will add to my electric bill though, and also unclear if I have to license and insure it.
If it makes sense, it’s only to the extent it saves me money, and wear & tear on the real car.
Legally I believe it’s a golf cart with seat belts & turn signals, may require an orange triangle in back.
A new or used UTV seems like it would make wayyy more sense than a golf cart, IF they are allowed on the streets where you reside.
“Ranger XP Kinetic Starting at $24,999 US MSRP”
https://offroad.polaris.com/en-us/whats-new-with-polaris-off-road/
High temps in the 20’s here today with freezing ~20 m.p.h. winds, next few days will be single digits for highs, lows in double-digit sub-zeros & soon those lows will likely be the highs.
Batteries will have a hard enough time just Starting a car, I cannot even imagine depending upon an electric car, or a golf cart, in real Winter.
helot, i believe your are right. the problem is ‘where allowed’, which is in most rural areas.
And the quantity and quality of these “UTV’s” are getting better and better.
Don’t be surprised if the feds try and force such areas to not allows these anymore.
I live in the suburbs.
If I were getting one of those a small pickup would be more practical.
LMAO, and up here, Helot, it is supposed to get down to -55 below next week. I am sure (insert sarcasm) that those electric vehicles would work wonders up here with weather like that. Even if the damned thing started, you would still freeze to death in the cabin, because you could not afford to heat the inside while you prayed to God you could get from “Point A” to “Point B” without getting stranded. And didn’t electric vehicle drivers get stranded in California back when they had fires? The electricity was shut off, and drivers got stranded on the side of the road? Yeah, I think I will keep my gas powered vehicles, thanks.
Shadow,
Best case, it supplements an ICE vehicle. IF it lowers costs enough to justify itself. I don’t commute far, I represent pretty much the ideal use case for an ev. If it saves money, I can use it 5 days/wk for probably 8-9 months out of the year, and that would be worth it. Save a lot of cold starts/short trips, which are hard on the car. And, like I said, I have connections I might be able to use to get a deal on replacement batteries.
It’s not for everyone.
Worst case: it’s an expensive albatross that doesn’t work when you need it to, and a fire hazard to boot.
Publius,
Ha! Yeah…could you imagine? I could see someone doing that: Spending a large fortune on an EV AND having to maintain their other car…and thinking they’re “saving money”……
I’m looking at a 2001 Gem that I think I can get for about $3k.
It’s near me but far enough I would most likely have to trailer it home.
I could see putting $1-2k in repairs and upgrades into it. But I could charge it inside my garage (I have a 2.5 car garage, with 120V electric already installed), it takes lead-acid batteries (probably want deep cycle ones for this application), and on a typical day I only go 15-20 miles at most, if I run a couple of errands after work. I’m guessing the range on those things is about 30-40 miles per day, with a 6-8h rated recharge time. I’m not certain how many kW*h are required but most current electric rate I could find are $0.122116 / kW*h, we will see how it increases but currently set to go up 1.3%/yr on average for the next several years.
Indeed, Publius. I read an article recently (cannot remember where), of hw much water it took to extinguish a fire when one of these EV’s caught fire, and the damned thing STILL managed to erupt in flames long after fire fighters thought they had extinguished the flames. Can you imagine some poor soul getting stuck in one of those things? Or a child, even? Maybe for those who live in town, they may work, and I think it is great if they do, but too many life on the outskirts of town in these parts (lots of people). And, like my one co-worker (whom I talk cars with) always cautioned me. He said never to buy anything (car related) that is brand new, and that “just came out”, but to wait several years until they get the “bugs” worked out. Only in this case, with EV’s, the bugs could get you stranded or killed.
The electric cars they should have built would be very small and light, good for around town, very inexpensive, powered by 100% green lead acid batteries, easy to recharge, but then you would be independent, not good.
DIY electric car runs 200 miles on old lead-acid batteries, which are 100% green…..
People should boycott all big manufacturers receiving ESG cash to push EV’s, don’t give them one cent.
Buy an older analog car without all the computers, don’t buy any new ice or EV vehicles.
If you want an EV buy one of these only, or build your own….this could be cheap wheels when ice cars are banned….
bribed with ESG money, automakers are building, pushing electric vehicles,
several individuals are using their skills to create low-cost electric rides.
David Cloud is one such individual who has spent $3,000.00 in converting a 1997 Geo Metro to run on an electric engine fueled by old lead acid batteries. A new EV is at least $50,000.00 or more.
The vehicle is powered by 8” ADC motors that are included on each rear wheel and are powered by old 12V lead-acid batteries. The vehicle has a top speed of 72mph and can hit 60mph in 18 seconds, with a range of about 200 miles.
Someone should build these and sell them, there is a market for them, the new EV’s are $50,000 +
Lead acid batteries are 100% recycled so are green. Lead acid can be traded in for reconditioned ones for $60.00 and come with a warranty. Twelve of them cost $720.00
EV lithium batteries cost $22,000.00 to $30,000.00 to replace.
Only 5% of lithium fire bomb batteries are recycled, plus there is a rumored $4500 recycling fee, so lots will get thrown into the woods…..
https://ecofriend.com/diy-electric-car-runs-200-miles-on-old-lead-acid-batteries.html
With the Biden Thing trying to shove intermittent, chaotic “green energy” down everyone’s throats under guise of “Climate Emergency”, if they succeed, we’d be facing people here freezing to death like what’s happening in parts of Europe that went ALL IN on “reneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewable energy”.
The Biden Thing does not know where, or when, it is.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/12/14/which-way-do-we-go-10-times-joe-biden-appeared-lost-in-public-view/
I believe the correct term is “not well oriented as to time and place.”
I call it “Biden in Egypt” (see Nile).
Adi Heidler,
Which is what makes the “Biden Administration” so hard to pin down, since everybody knows he isn’t running it, because he isn’t able to. So, who is running it? I suspect it’s a cabal of communists and fascists (corporatists). No one to point the finger at.
>No one to point the finger at.
Yep. Convenient, that.
Ice storms, wind events, tornados, car accidents, mylar balloons into substations –any number of things that can cause power outages either for a few minutes or a few days. The interruptions range from nuisances to disaster for the EV acolytes.
The mylar balloons into the substation actually happened here a while back. Power was out for a couple hours.
Mike,
Not to mention the grid simply failing to meet demand, like it did in Texas last year, and has frequently in California.
John,
The problem will not be resolved until the government is effectively ignored. At which point, the problem will pretty much solve itself.
People know how to do stuff, and want to. They are mostly prevented from doing so by other people, and by themselves (often motivated by fear of other people, which is often justified although not always).
Publius,
Indeed, a lot of the antagonism between the elitist left and the libertarian right is that the left CAN’T “do stuff”, while the right thrives on it.
Definitely ignore the government on the vaccine. Of course, if you get the vaccine and the booster, the good news is it might kill you before your EV leaves you stranded in the snow with a grizzly bear smiling at you while it pulls a salt shaker out of its pocket.
“…with a grizzly bear smiling at you while it pulls a salt shaker out of its pocket.”
Top shelf, Kent!
Kent,
+1000
Priceless.
Heh. Back when I was in Alaska, I was advised to carry a 44 magnum in the Bush. But if you choose to carry a 357 magnum, be sure to file down the front sight so when the griz takes it away and shoves it up your a$$, it dont hurt quite as much…
RE: “that can cause power outages either for a few minutes or a few days.”
Or, how about a full week? Happened to me, twice. Once from ice storms, another from a derecho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derecho
Many people, both far out in the countryside, and quite a few scattered across The City were without power for weeks.
Weeks, not days.
Sometimes, a whole city block would be without power for weeks while the houses across the street were just fine.
It was a surreal experience to live through.
Last summer there was a very small brush fire down the road from me. Burned up a few utility poles and a transformer. Power was out for 2 hours for about 250 homes.