Electric Vehicle's - Utopia or Hell

General General Discussion
1

Personally I don’t believe electric cars are going to save the planet, funny how the dangers of lithium batteries are downplayed. There are around 500 EV’s on board this ship, plus the rest of the cars each have about a liter of fuel. The video points out this kind of fire could happen in a parking garage with a unstoppable fire and toxic fumes and a lot more gas around.

One killed as ship carrying 3,000 cars catches fire off Dutch coast

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/cargo-ship-fire-off-dutch-coast

A blaze on a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles off the Dutch coast has killed one person and injured several others, with coastguards warning that the fire could last for several days.

The fire began on Tuesday night on the 199-metre Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, which was en route from Germany to Egypt. Several crew members were forced to jump overboard.

The ship’s owner said an electric car in the cargo was suspected as a possible cause for the blaze.

//youtu.be/iWt-wjUJNb8

2

I agree. Like a lot of newer tech, the advantages are exaggerated and the downsides are ignored.

To get decent range using current battery tech, the batteries are enormous and heavy. The resulting cars are heavy and a huge fire hazard.

We can’t mine and refine enough lithium and other essential metals (rare earths) to replace the existing ICE fleet. I believe that the globalists consider this a feature, not a bug, and will happily use it to get more peasants out of cars and into buses, etc.

Electric cars are not “green” on a life cycle basis when you account for the environmental and energy cost of the necessary materials.

Electric cars are not “green” on purely a CO2/mile basis when you look at how heavy current options are, how much electricity they use, conversion losses and the fact that so much of that energy is still coming from fossil fuels.

If this was actually about the environment, hybrid tech from the late 90’s onward would greatly reduce fuel consumption while avoiding 80-90% of the downsides outlined above. Toyota has been saying this for two decades now.

3

On the fire, I had a RC plane LiPo battery corrupt when it was in my jeans pocket…. It weighed was the size of a piece of gum and it burned a hole in my jeans, a small hole in me, and was a bitch to neutralize. They ‘burn’, but it really is a chemical reaction that you really don’t stop. Literally scared me. Battery fires scare teh crap out of me.

Tesla did a lot for getting EVs to be accepted by making even base model pure speed demons. Then people insisted on cars with batteries that cover the 1% of travel- long distance. Compound that electricity doesn’t pay for roads like gas taxes do.

The reality is that EVs have to suck to work. Most people travel by themselves and drive less than 50 miles a day. This is a vastly different vehicle than is currently being sold, EV or not. You drive it, you charge it every night. A battery operated CIVIC. For the 1% or trips you take where you need something bigger and more range, you rent it. Target the tax credits for EVs based on the battery being no bigger than X or using so many kilos of Co, Li, etc.

-That covers people actual use
-Reduces actual CO2
-Forces battery development away from precious metals.

Of course, as everyone says that they want Green and Sustainable, and then don’t actually buy it. The fricking Hummer EVs battery weighs more than some cars IIRC. You’d have to almost give the cars away as I described- and they’ll do that by taxing the be-Jesus out of gas, ICE engine displacement, and large batteries.

4

Extremely heavy, 45m to refuel, at best, and it isn’t good for it. Short range.

**** all that.

Get it down to 3500 lbs, great braking & handling, a 350 mile range, repeatedly and for the duration, and a 5m max refuel time and I might be interested.

5

These batteries are an environmental nightmare. Typical stupid liberal fantasy world.

6

3 of our good family friends just died yesterday in a Tesla when it burst into flames after hitting a tree. They were coming back from the UFC Fights here in SLC and it sounds like speed was a big factor, causing them to blow through a turn and hit a tree sideways. It looks like upon impact, the Tesla went up in a raging fire. Not sure if they would have survived without the fire, but the fire definitely ensured none of them made it. The fires these batteries cause are insane, and extremely difficult to put out. Huge safety factor IMO.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50697929/3-die-in-fiery-crash-on-beck-street-in-salt-lake-city

7

I don’t get hung up on all the environmental debate noise, but rather view an electric vehicle for how it might serve my own wants and needs.

I like the idea of refueling at home, and very much like the thought of refueling via solar panels at home. While I cannot drill an oil well or build a refinery on my property for gasoline powered vehicles, I can install solar panels for a battery powered vehicle. I’ve been reading that five or six solar panels will be plenty for a local vehicle that isn’t driven a great deal. I don’t see it as a monetary benefit but as a move toward more self reliance. Pleasure travel is an entirely different matter.

8

I’m 62, I live in Central Texas. I don’t travel often, but when I do it’s heading West out of State.
How long would it take me to get out to Arizona with frequent recharging?
And can you please forward my mail along the trip?

Aint no F’ing way I would own one of those Albatross.

9

Double

10

Yep. There is no good way to dispose of them, creating a far worse ecological threat than any fossil fuel emissions.

My brother in-law works for Diamler, and he has some great information on EV’s

11

It is a .Gov mandated wet dream that nobody wants or needs. At a minimum, one domestic automaker will go bankrupt as a result of this bullshit.

Government mandates don’t create consumer demand or make them practical in any way for the majority of uses.

12

I don’t see the practicality, keep working on the ICE we’ve made amazing advancements in the last 40 years.

13

Let’s not forget about the pollution caused by rapid tire wear:

https://www.dw.com/en/electric-vehicle-tires-a-lesser-known-pollution-headache/a-66189707

14

Just took a poll opn this subject at Tech Triumph, 62% of respondents felt that they are a waste of resources .

15

Tesla has gotten lots of government grants and loans, their sales are subsidized by tax credits for the buyers, and they still can’t make money selling cars. They make money selling emission/fuel economy credits to other vehicle manufacturers. They still almost declared bankruptcy in 2019.

If they had to compete on a level playing field they would be long gone. Manufacturing costs, building corporate infrastructure, and R&D would kill them without .gov putting a big fat finger on the scales.

Then there are the questions of battery safety, battery manufacturing capacity, charge rates, range, …

Then you can dive into electrical generating capacity, electrical distribution, mining for rare earth metals, …

EVs are not ready for prime time on a global scale. It’s all just a grab for your money and your freedoms, period.

And no, I don’t believe that even one of those crooked, lying bastards in DC cares one whit about the environment. It’s all about power and control.

16

John Stossel makes some good points about the lies that the government is pushing about EV’s.

Part 1
[video=youtube_share;z2HneqfZGsM]https://youtu.be/z2HneqfZGsM[/video]

Part 2
https://youtu.be/ptI6BRVC1Kw

17

So have we totally given up on the self-driving cars? Those have been three years away for the past fifteen…no one seems to talk about them.

18

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
Tesla Model 3, 2021, LFP battery ( essentially a civic ) leaving full, assuming gas leaving full
Dallas TX to Lake Havasu City, AZ
EV - 20 H 45M, 10 stops to charge
Gas - 18 H 14M, @20MPG, 16 gal/tank, 3 stops at 20 minutes each

2H 30M difference, more than 1 overnight and it stacks in EV favor. Does not hold if you’re bringing the ski boat, but if you’re doing longer meals while charging vs. burger on the road it stacks in EV favor.

And Tesla has paid the majority back faster than anyone else. Go look at 2008, where GM was effectively nationalized for the union and common/bond holders got ****ed. Tesla does make a lot of their money selling credits, and is definitely using pricing power to hurt other auto makers.

Take a look at share price & cash flow, even with out the gov subsidies (which have excluded them for the last few years) they’d be default alive. Got close past 2008, but that happened to GM as well. Hence the price cuts. Go look at every other EV manufacturer and they’re bleeding on each car even with gov subsidies.

If its about control, you can disable the cell antenna, and charge it at open outlets. Run a gen set at home like anyone who has to deal with a utility like PG&E, Oncor or AEP.

Sign up for Cruze in SF, or Waymo in PHX. Its fun. Experience it first hand, no worse than the 3rd world driving in most Uber/Lyft.

All of this and what I like is what these guys are doing https://www.edisonmotors.ca/
Diesel generator fed, electric drive train hybrid. Give it to me in a full size pick up thats not going to blow its engine or transmission, gets 30 MGP+ and they’ll be on the road for a decade outside of accidents.

19

One of the big 3 has less than 100 ICE engineers left in the company.

Think about that for a minute and imagine the ramifications.

(That is down from multiple thousands, in case you don’t know.)

These policies are very likely the result of the XiDen compromise from day one.

  1. Automakers are forced by Wall Street to invest and MFG in China.
  2. All auto MFG is a joint venture with majority ownership by the CCP.
  3. MFG technology and engineering transfer of IP both legally and Illegally.
  4. The destruction of the US Auto MFG base and the transfer of said base to China.

We are being sold out and it’s been going on since Klinton.

The Teslas that are sold are because their electronics suite is superior to most of the competition, oh and people are virtue signalers.

20

Electric vehicles soon will be a thing of the past.

With the reversal of globalization as a policy of the USA, many things are going to change. One of the things that are going to die is EV.