Have EVs Reached A Short-Term Peak?

[crimsonaudio]

Let me guess. Your 50 old vehicle is a Land Rover? How many miles?

Land Cruiser, so I don't leak oil and leave random parts all over the place while driving.

94k original miles on the matching engine and transmission.

Gets a whopping 11 mpg but it will climb a tree. I call this one Yagi - Japanese for goat (because it climbs like a mountain goat and the LC truly is the GOAT wrt 4x4s)

 

[TexasBama]

if the us reaches that point, it probably won’t matter what type of vehicle you have

A Pursuit Special what you want

 

[crimsonaudio]

A Pursuit Special what you want

Just pray you never have to leave the pavement.

 

[Go Bama]

Land Cruiser, so I don't leak oil and leave random parts all over the place while driving.

94k original miles on the matching engine and transmission.

Gets a whopping 11 mpg but it will climb a tree. I call this one Yagi - Japanese for goat (because it climbs like a mountain goat and the LC truly is the GOAT wrt 4x4s)

View attachment 37959

Very, very nice!

 

[mdb-tpet]

Maybe not TEOTWAWKI but in the event of a natural disaster that necessitates widespread evacuation, I'm wanting an ICE vehicle. And if it's due to an EMP, I've got an 50+ year old ICE that will run on basically anything petrol and (of course) no computers.

IF civilization collapses, gas will become the hottest commodity possible; but on the other hand, solar panels can fuel an electric car indefinitely (albeit slowly). You'll have to stop after 250-300 miles, but you can keep going after charging, unlike trying to formulate your own gasoline. If you car ran on diesel, then you might have a option with vegetable oil...but making oil from plants would take just a bit longer than sunlight on solar panels.

In the end, I'd chose a mountain bike, since you can go literally anywhere without fuel and you're more mobile than any car or truck long term.

 

[crimsonaudio]

IF civilization collapses, gas will become the hottest commodity possible; but on the other hand, solar panels can fuel an electric car indefinitely (albeit slowly). You'll have to stop after 250-300 miles, but you can keep going after charging, unlike trying to formulate your own gasoline. If you car ran on diesel, then you might have a option with vegetable oil...but making oil from plants would take just a bit longer than sunlight on solar panels.

In the end, I'd chose a mountain bike, since you can go literally anywhere without fuel and you're more mobile than any car or truck long term.

Realistically, if we're talking about going weeks without fuel supply, being able to drive your vehicle will likely be very far down your list of priorities. The streets will be completely blocked with cars that have run out of fuel / charge.

Not only that, but your vehicle will be highly desirable, so now you have to ward off those who want it.

Nah, end of civilization (if I'm leaving) I want to get where I'm going asap then batten down the hatches.

 

[JDCrimson]

Road Warriors warring in EVs just doesn't have the same appeal as fighting over gas...

 

[crimsonaudio]

Road Warriors warring in EVs just doesn't have the same appeal as fighting over gas...

Thunderdome 2024:

 

[TIDE-HSV]

IF civilization collapses, gas will become the hottest commodity possible; but on the other hand, solar panels can fuel an electric car indefinitely (albeit slowly). You'll have to stop after 250-300 miles, but you can keep going after charging, unlike trying to formulate your own gasoline. If you car ran on diesel, then you might have a option with vegetable oil...but making oil from plants would take just a bit longer than sunlight on solar panels.

In the end, I'd chose a mountain bike, since you can go literally anywhere without fuel and you're more mobile than any car or truck long term.

I've toured HSV a couple of times on bikes after tornadoes, when most streets were closed somewhere, one end or another, in the strike zone...

 

[BamaFlum]

IF civilization collapses, gas will become the hottest commodity possible; but on the other hand, solar panels can fuel an electric car indefinitely (albeit slowly). You'll have to stop after 250-300 miles, but you can keep going after charging, unlike trying to formulate your own gasoline. If you car ran on diesel, then you might have a option with vegetable oil...but making oil from plants would take just a bit longer than sunlight on solar panels.

In the end, I'd chose a mountain bike, since you can go literally anywhere without fuel and you're more mobile than any car or truck long term.

Old diesels can run on some alternative fuels as well.

 

[Crimson1967]

If civilization collapses will gas stations remain in operation?

 

[JDCrimson]

Look at it this way if we want to push everything to the electrical grid including transportation, all you have to do is hack the electrical grid then everything is shutdown.

I heard a talk a few years ago from Ted Coppel who was spending a lot of his retired years promoting energy diversification. He said our national electric grid was was the most insecure national asset that it was a national security issue.

Relying on a single point of failure is not very smart, its when not if that point of failure indeed fails.

If civilization collapses will gas stations remain in operation?

 

[AWRTR]

Look at it this way if we want to push everything to the electrical grid including transportation, all you have to do is hack the electrical grid then everything is shutdown.

I heard a talk a few years ago from Ted Coppel who was spending a lot of his retired years promoting energy diversification. He said our national electric grid was was the most insecure national asset that it was a national security issue.

Relying on a single point of failure is not very smart, its when not if that point of failure indeed fails.

An electrical grid attack will get all transportation. Pumps won’t work if there is no electricity.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Further proof the infrastructure isn’t ready for widespread EV adoption:

Tesla's Mega 98-Supercharger Location Runs In Part On A Diesel Generator: Report - Jalopnik

While EVs are all the rage with automakers right now (if not with their customers), their green bona fides have increasingly come into question over the past few years. SF Gate has a reminder that, when it comes to Tesla, pulling back the curtain even a little reveals all sorts of dirty secrets.

jalopnik.com

 

[NationalTitles18]

That article does not appear to be 100% true.

Further proof the infrastructure isn’t ready for widespread EV adoption:

Tesla's Mega 98-Supercharger Location Runs In Part On A Diesel Generator: Report - Jalopnik

While EVs are all the rage with automakers right now (if not with their customers), their green bona fides have increasingly come into question over the past few years. SF Gate has a reminder that, when it comes to Tesla, pulling back the curtain even a little reveals all sorts of dirty secrets.

jalopnik.com

BLOG: Harris Ranch sets record straight on diesel-powered Tesla Supercharger allegations

“Swirling internet rumors” centered on Harris Ranch Resort in Coalinga have officials there attempting to set the record straight. Controversy was resurrected beginning last month when sfgate.com published a story headlined “Tesla’s dirty little secret

thebusinessjournal.com

The truth? A building reportedly associated with this diesel plant is actually a storage facility and office for the Harris Ranch Express BBQ management team. There are no diesel plants or diesel generators on Harris Ranch property, “a point we fervently assert,” according to a statement issued by Harris Ranch Resort on Thursday.

The sfgate.com article published on Sept. 3 includes reporting conducted by an investigative journalist in 2015. That journalist filmed a video posted on YouTube purporting to show a diesel generator in use to power extra charging bays during the 2015 Memorial Day weekend.

The device in the video appears to be capable of being pulled behind a truck on a trailer. That’s important to note given Harris Ranch’s assertion that there are no diesel plants or generators on their property.

...

“People are very concerned,” Devereaux said. “Not angry. They just want us to set the record straight.”

To do so, Harris Ranch invites customers and concerned parties alike to visit and inspect the property.

“We are confident that any evaluation will substantiate our statements regarding the absence of diesel power facilities at the Harris Ranch Resort,” according to a statement.

Devereaux said she has been in contact with sfgate.com in hopes of correcting the story. While Tesla doesn’t respond to media inquiries, Devereaux is hopeful to get some talking points from the EV maker to help clear up any misinformation.

___

Misinformation seems to be a common tactic for those opposed to electric vehicles.

Is This a 'Diesel Car Charging Station' for Electric Cars?

Is this really a "diesel car charging station"? The electric car industry is much larger than a single photograph.

www.snopes.com

What's True
This photograph shows an electric car charging at a diesel generator in 2018.
What's False
This image does not depict a typical circumstance for electric vehicles. The photograph was taken in the Australian outback, not the United States, where gas stations are scarce (and electric charging stations are even scarcer). The picture documents a privately-funded project, not one backed by a major electric car company, and the diesel fuel used provided the equivalent of 42 MPG, not 5.6. By the time of this writing in 2021, the charging station (dubbed the "Chargepod") was running on biodiesel fuel.

 

[crimsonaudio]

That article does not appear to be 100% true.

<snip>

Misinformation seems to be a common tactic for those opposed to electric vehicles.

Man, you ain't kidding.

I'm not an EV evangelist, but I do think it's the future, but goodness - big oil must spend ungodly amounts of money having misleading articles (or articles that *slightly* twist the truth (aka lying)) out there.

Thanks for catching that. I'm gonna leave my post up just so people can see the reply showing it to be false.

 

[NationalTitles18]

Man, you ain't kidding.

I'm not an EV evangelist, but I do think it's the future, but goodness - big oil must spend ungodly amounts of money having misleading articles (or articles that *slightly* twist the truth (aka lying)) out there.

Thanks for catching that. I'm gonna leave my post up just so people can see the reply showing it to be false.

Yeah, it's a common tactic and it's frustrating to try to wade through it.

There's almost always a nugget of truth mixed in with the lies to make it seem credible.

And it doesn't help if the reader has a bias that leads them to confirmation of what they already believe to be true, even if it isn't true.

I have to admit these tactics have worked on me. They aren't new tactics.

When the pandemic was raging it was exhausting trying to counter the torrent of misinformation/disinformation.

 

[4Q Basket Case]

So EVs have some problems. Leaving aside the manufacturers’ overstatement of their green-ness, and the grid’s ability to handle a larger proportion of EVs on the road, there’s the problem of consumer demand:

EV Makers Turn to Discounts to Combat Waning Demand

Car companies and dealers are slashing thousands off purchase prices to attract wary shoppers.

www.wsj.com

This is paywalled for those without a subscription, but I’ll summarize
- Prices for EVs are considerably higher than for comparable ICEs.
- Wealthier buyers have already bought.
- The remaining (less-wealthy) market is more price-sensitive
- Dealers are offering massive incentives and discounts to move inventory
- ICEs are sitting on dealers’ lots an average of a month. EVs twice as long, even with those huge discounts and incentives.
- Higher interest rates compound the dealers’ issue — they pay a higher rate of interest on their floorplan lines of credit and do it for twice as long as before
- Bottom Line: Between discounts, incentives, higher interest rates and longer time on the lot, nobody’s making much money on these things, legacy manufacturers are scaling back both production and investment in future production capacity, and newer manufacturers (Lucid, Fisker, etc.) are burning through tons of cash.

Beyond price, the article doesn’t get into why consumers are behaving this way. So I’ll offer my own reasons:
- Range anxiety.
- Lack of widely-available charging stations.
- Many of the existing charging stations don’t work.
- For the ones that do, it still takes 45 minutes or so to re-fuel.
- At many stations, the price to charge up for X miles is actually higher than it would be to buy gasoline for an ICE to go the same distance
- The massive discounts on new cars are hurting the value of used EVs
- You can get around some of this with a charging station in your garage. But you have to have a garage in the first place, you have to buy the station, you have to pay to run the electrical line and install the station, and you have park the car in the garage — IOW, if you take it on a road trip, you face all the other issues.

The major bottleneck I see is the time to re-charge. When it takes 5-10 minutes, that’s a different ballgame.

A caution there, though. You still have to put the same amount of energy into the car. You just do it quicker — kind of like a fire hose vs. a garden hose. Which will require more of a boost to the grid than current charging times would.

I think all of that is going to get fixed…..eventually. Just not in my lifetime.

 

[NationalTitles18]

So EVs have some problems. Leaving aside the manufacturers’ overstatement of their green-ness, and the grid’s ability to handle a larger proportion of EVs on the road, there’s the problem of consumer demand:

EV Makers Turn to Discounts to Combat Waning Demand

Car companies and dealers are slashing thousands off purchase prices to attract wary shoppers.

www.wsj.com

This is paywalled for those without a subscription, but I’ll summarize
- Prices for EVs are considerably higher than for comparable ICEs.
- Wealthier buyers have already bought.
- The remaining (less-wealthy) market is more price-sensitive
- ICEs are sitting on dealers’ lots an average of a month. EVs twice as long, even with huge discounts and incentives.
- Higher interest rates compound the dealers’ issue — they pay a higher rate of interest on their floorplan lines of credit and do it for twice as long as before
- Bottom Line: Between discounts, incentives, higher interest rates and longer time on the lot, nobody’s making much money on these things.

New Car Market: Prices Are About To Plummet — Is Now the Right Time To Buy?

The U.S. car market has shifted into lower gear in only a matter of months. After average car prices hit record highs as recently as last summer, some analysts now predict that an oversupply of...

finance.yahoo.com

Sales slumps and discounts are not unique to EVs.

Early adopters are early adopters.

As production becomes more cost competitive - and they will - more will adopt the new technology.

Take any recent new tech over the last 100+ years and you see the same pattern - from automobiles to computers to smart phones.

The auto industry is expected to be hurting in general, not just on EVs.

 

[mdb-tpet]

Never discount oil/gas monied interests desperately funding misinformation about EVs.

Cars are great in some ways, but in the end, the standard automobile has many, many problems to solve/eliminate, just one of the bigger problems is oil. EVs only minimize the oil problem after auto production, but the rest of the automobile problems are still unsolved.

Some other automobile problems:
1. Pollution: carbon dioxide/air, oil, water, tire debris, brake pads, car parts, light, noise, other chemicals, outgassing, etc.
2. 2,000,000 + people a year in the US are sent to the hospital a year by autos
3. 40,000 people a year are killed by autos in the US every year
4. We have no real plan for recycling autos when they are done
5. Our auto infrastructure has whittled away our city public spaces to the point where you can't walk or bike anywhere safely. Kids have few places to play. And everything is now built far away for parking spaces, making driving seem like a requirement.
6. Cancer rates are far higher for car drivers
7. Hollowing out of our cities/destroying the tax base when people drive from work to a suburb/exurb.
8. Traffic jams, traffic jams, traffic jams
9. Stressed out drivers/road rage.
10. Elimination of civility/eroding of our civic areas as we are sealed off from each other, seeing each other as an obstacle.
11. Economically unfeasible city infrastructure requiring additional growth and bonds to pay for previous infrastructure projects as cities explode in size.

I won't be surprised if we find there's an active but secret campaign to push Elon over the edge since he's the new Tucker on the block disrupting the big three and the entire oil and gas industry all at the same time. Sorry for the conspiracy there...