Rep. Massie Tears Apart Buttigieg’s Argument That Electric Cars Would Save Americans Money
#SassyWithMassie: The greenest member of Congress schools Buttigieg in math, economics, and common sense.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tried to convince Congress that he needs electric car subsidies for electric vehicles to help people like you and me at the pump:
“The more pain we are all experiencing from the high price of gas, the more benefit there is for those who can access electric vehicle,” Buttigieg said.
“So you’re saying the more pain we have, the more benefit we’re gonna get?” Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., asked. “I think that’s what I heard you say.”
Buttigieg emphasized, “Of course – no, no, that’s what you heard me say. I know you want me to say it so bad but honestly, sir, what we’re saying is we could have no pain at all by making EVs cheaper for everyone.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) dropped a common sense truth bomb on Buttigieg because um, what?! Math and economics from Massie:
“It would take four times as much electricity to charge the average household’s cars as the average household uses on air conditioning. Do you think that could be — so if we reach the goal by 2030 that Biden has, of a fifty percent adoption instead of one hundred percent adoption, that means the average household would use twice as much electricity charging one of their cars as they would use for all of the air conditioning that they use for the entire year.”
Imagine how much more we would pay for electricity if we all had to have electric cars. Now imagine how much more we would have to pay if they placed a tax on the electricity usage for the cars. Or they’ll tax you for the mileage you use.
.@RepThomasMassie: "The average household uses 1,870 kWh/year for air conditioning. If that average household plugged in electric cars…it would take FOUR TIMES as much electricity to charge the average household's cars as the average household uses on air conditioning." pic.twitter.com/rzvRQRqpeH
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 19, 2022
If we blindly follow Joe Biden's impractical electric car policies, it will cause pain for middle class Americans. pic.twitter.com/GKUeaEq9UN
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 19, 2022
By the way, Massie probably knows more than Buttigieg when it comes to science and energy.
Massie is a legit genius with multiple degrees from MIT. He has a B.S.and M.S.degrees in electrical engineering. He also completed a master’s of science degree.
Massie has been living off the grid for years. Oh, yeah. He also uses the green energy the left loves to preach about.
We all don’t have Massie’s brains. If I could do this I would. But most of us cannot and Massie knows the left’s policies would affect us.
You should also watch Massie’s documentary about living off the grid.
I have issues with Massie, but saying “he hates new energy,” is dumb. He built his own off-grid system using solar panels, an old TSLA battery, and a Raspberry Pi. Also, I’m shocked that Buttigieg is tying his political future to the practicality of everyone buying BEVs. Moronic. https://t.co/J6l8kInuDB pic.twitter.com/9jstvWR6Bg
— Seth Horwitz (@Seth_Horwitz) July 19, 2022
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Comments
The pain is the goal. If they wanted solutions that helped average americans, none of their policies would have been implemented.
Pain and chaos. Can’t overthrow the Republic without that combination.
The vile Dumb-o-crat apparatchiks are narcissistic children occupying a fantasy world of their own totalitarian creation. Objective facts, common sense and reality need not intrude to disrupt their fantasies. Buttigieg plays the part, perfectly. This idiot spouts all the usual halcyon talking points about “green” this and that, but, any person possessing a modicum of common sense and rationality understands that he is talking out of his rear end.
But the talking heads on msndnc ooh and ah over him — he has ironclad qualifications. (he’s gay!) Everything after that is too good to check.
Yes, the media’s fawning over this guy merely because of the inconsequential and irrelevant trait of his sexual predilections is utterly nauseating.
Mayor Pete says “ what we’re saying is we could have no pain at all by making EVs cheaper for everyone.”
Uh huh. How exactly does the government make EVs cheaper? By subsidies, since they can’t actually control the costs of production. So who pays for the subsidies? Taxpayers? Or do we just print more money and increase inflation? Somebody’s going to feel the pain. TANSTAAFL, Pete.
Buttigieg is too smart by half.
Smart is not a word I’d apply to Buttplug.
“Affordable housing” once meant housing that didn’t cost too much; now, it’s a synonym for “subsidized housing.”
So, expect shortly to hear of “affordable electric cars.” Not because they’ll actually not cost too much, but because they’ll be subsidized.
As will electricity: when its price rises until it’s a luxury good, there will be endless government programs to help favored constituencies obtain subsidies. While the rest of us endure rationing, no doubt.
It’s been said that one should not assume malevolence where mere incompetence is sufficient explanation. The reality is, there are few Democratic politicians (let alone climate/energy activists) who have any real understanding of the costs and tradeoffs involved in energy production. And (of course) even fewer journalists.
Because, really, math is hard. And wishful thinking so much more fun.
with democrats you get malevolence and incompetence in a tidy little package
Ronk,
I’ve been saying something similar for quite a while, but never so succinctly or wittily.
I hope you won’t mind if I adopt your formulation.
Best,
O.M.
I give them 6 months for their ‘subsidized’ ‘affordable’ boutique EV’s.
Democrats, for all their flaws, are geniuses at twisting a phrase and turning the language upside down. They could sell raw excrement to a surgical center as cleaning supplies. It’s organic! And very powerful!
Chevy Bolts are not subsidized, and sticker <$30K. Do you ever check facts, or is that verboten for you?
https://www.motortrend.com/news/2023-chevrolet-bolt-ev-euv-price-msrp/
Correction: Not federally subsidized. Some of the blue states stupidly subsidize them.
Which means Government subsidizing new Teslas for Doctors and Lawyers to drive.
Teslas are no longer federally subsidized. Same for GM and Nissan. Once they hit 200,000 units sold, the purchase tax credit ended. You could have spent one minute to check, but you are lazy, ignorant, and dishonest. Sure beats doing any actual work, doesn’t it?
It’s just not fair that you have so much air conditioning and the less-privileged have so little.
I suppose something comparable to “food deserts” could develop, but not sure what they’d call it if related to non-desert-like air conditioning.
They are aiming for “fuel deserts.”
“Affordable housing” is an oxymoron.
Rule of thumb when it comes to Leftists using adjectives to modify nouns: You are going to get a lot less of the modified noun.
“Affordable housing “ is also a code phrase for “you don’t want to buy here”.
Affordable electric cars means the electric scooters that sell for $500 at Costco.
I am utterly no fan of Buttigieg. He is arrogant, unqualified, and incompetent, and those are the nicest things I have to say about him. But Massie’s numbers are laughable and directly contradicted by the facts from the EPA and the Federal Highway Administration. I don’t like it when they lie, and that applies to ALL of them.
LI, you bought a bill of goods with this one.
It blows my mind that people are this stupid. Where do they think the electricity for all of these cars will come from? Here in California they want to mandate all electric cars by 2035 but we are shutting down power plants and can barely keep the lights on as it is!
If I was a governor in one of the surrounding states that cali buys electric from, the rates would be so high that most of my citizens would be paying less than $50 a month.
If cali complained, I’d tell them outsourcing their pollution comes at a steep cost.
If you will recall, with the radicals slashing/deflating tires on SUVs to make a point, they presented a graph showing what part of climate change the SUVs were responsible for.
The kicker: the biggest polluter was power generation. Go figure (because the left won’t).
The stupid thing about this is how much carbon was generated to re-inflate the tires. A tow truck or AAA service will have to come out to service the tires. Those trucks probably generate a lot more carbon than the SUV.
I swear eco-nuts could possibly be the dumbest people alive.
Eat more Greens.
On the one hand they say get ev’s and save on gas. On the other hand it’s hot as heck and they’re saying cut back on your A/C to save the grid.
What I’d like to say is crass, rude, mean and uses curse words with abandon.
However this is the family hour channel and I’ll refrain.
Let’s go brandon will just have to do for now.
Right there with you.
You don’t think too much, do you? EVs get charged overnight. They want people to cut electricity use during the afternoon peak. Are you commonly this stupid, sammich maker?
So nobody works 2nd/3rd shift in your world? Nobody has to recharge while on the road? Nobody plugs in as soon as they get home in the afternoon? All AC stops at 4pm?
Your personal attack is pretty crappy, 4fun didnt attack you. What is this sammich maker crap?
90% of EVs are charged at home. A 2nd shift worker would be perfect for overnight charging. Apparently you have never worked second shift. LOL
Dear MENSA member,
When do you think everybody else will be using their electric appliances? Kali has issued regulations telling people not to use them during peak hours from 4 – 10p.m. You know, when everyone is getting home from work. During the hottest part of the day.
Everyone is supposed to cook, do laundry, and run the air conditioner after 10. When all those EVs are going to be plugged in and charging.
Don’t think these things aren’t coming here.
https://insideevs.com/news/537120/ev-chargers-switched-off-uk/amp/
As of May 30, 2022, new home and workplace chargers being installed must be “smart” chargers connected to the internet and able to employ pre-sets limiting their ability to function from 8 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 10 pm. However, users of home chargers will be able to override the pre-sets should they need to, although it’s not clear how often they will be able to do that.
In addition to the nine hours a day of downtime, authorities will be able to impose a “randomized delay” of 30 minutes on individual chargers in certain areas to prevent grid spikes at other times.
But that’s not the best part.
Yup. These new “smart chargers” will be controlled by the government. They can control rate of charge, and even drain your toy’s battery if the government decides it needs the electricity. Very Orwellian, calling them “bi-directional charging” when the point is to discharge your battery.
Anybody who gets an EV is a sucker
If you don’t want the gov’t drawing juice from your EV (I certainly wouldn’t), that’s easy. Don’t get a dedicated charger, and plug it straight into a 240v/30A outlet. In fact, if you’re really patient, plug it into a standard 120v/15 amp outlet. The chargers are a waste of money anyway. They duplicate the functions already inside the car. Only a moron gets a dedicated charger. I use a charging cord that cost me $125. Alas, Bidenflation has driven the price to $200, but that’s a lot less than $2,000+ for those stupid “charging stations.”
But then, I own an EV (along with a 1-ton diesel truck and a gas-powered SUV), which makes me dangerous because I actually know what I am talking about. Kill me now!
Never forget that there are people who want Buttigieg for president in 2024.
Senile old Biden wasn’t bad enough. Now they want a certifiable imbecile!
But he’s a ghey certifiable imbecile!
There is nowhere near enough power generation in this country, or any other, to accommodate the conversion to EV’s the green lobby is trying to force on us.
Worse, they are shutting down coal and nuclear power plants as fast as they can, and “replacing” with wind and solar. Which are incredibly unreliable, outrageously expense, and require an enormous amount of land.
You would need a wind turbine “farm” bigger than the State of Rhode Island to supply electricity just to the State of Rhode Island. And, it doesn’t produce any power at all when the wind is not blowing. Also does not produce any power when the wind is blowing too hard – they have to feather the blades to prevent the turbine being destroyed.
How many people have spent the $$ to upgrade the internal electric system in their own homes for a charging station for an EV? 1%??
Same people that want us all to drive EV’s want to eliminate home ownership and make us all rent apartments. How many apartment complexes have charging stations in their parking lots? 0.0001%?
In between, from power supply to your home, does our electric grid have the capacity to handle this increased demand? Not even close. Same people that want us all to drive an EV make it impossible for utilities to build new transmission lines. Not in my back yard!!
The whole thing is a pipe dream. It would be silly except for the fact that they are deliberately destroying the economy in a vain effort to make it economically attractive to buy their expensive EV’s – which would cost far more without the government subsidies supporting them. Where does the $$ come from for the subsidies? From us, of course.
Globalists don’t want you to have cars; They want you to take the bus or the train
They don’t want you to live in suburbs; They want you packed into megacities.
They don’t want you to have nuclear families; They want you rudderless as livestock.
They don’t want you to eat burgers; They want you to eat soy and crickets.
They don’t want you to have firearms; They want you unarmed and harmless.
Everything that’s happening in America right now is to promote these goals.
Just no. When their lifestyles match their words, I might pay attention. So I can point and laugh.
I don’t intend to be stuffed into a target-rich environment, living a vastly diminished lifestyle, while they jet around and live in houses the size of a small town and eat wagyu beef.
Yes, I really enjoyed the lecture the Duke gave at the UN–where he promptly retired to his gigantic SUV using his security team to eat steak tartare in a New York restaurant
The leftist progressive religion of climate alarmist extremism is fast on it’s way to replacing socialism/communism as the most deadly and devastating socio-economic force in the history of humanity. This is just more examples. We only need to look to how Sri Lanka destroyed their economy to see a small glimpse of the future at the hands of these climatology zealots.
It will become even more clear as Europe suffers through the winter without enough power due to climate policies, their dependence upon Russian oil and the likelihood that Putin will exploit that. I feel sorry for the German population who will suffer this winter based on unsound decisions made by their leaders over the past few years.
As a PE, there are many ways to factor this and a zillion qualifiers/assumptions and room for debate regarding power requirements.
Here is a very basic “conversational” estimate on required capacity ( in terms of load) to meet the expressed project requirements ( what they tell you)
This is based on very high level public data available with no attempt to do anything but establish a hypothetical baseline for discussion points.
This is NOT including anything else but charging EV’s.
With the following data points:
The “average” EV will consume 30,000 watts ( 2 full recharges to >80% per 7 day week) This figure extrapolates the much published 7200 watts at point of use ( the car) and adds the line losses and transformations in efficiency from point of origin ( the power station). Basically 50% efficiency since charging is a DC function and a heavy load)
287 million registered cars in the US ( the ultimate green goal as they like to state)
That’s an estimated weekly load of 8,610 Mw per week to charge the EV
An “average” plant produces around 966Mw per week ( but the duty cycle is not constant but we will pretend it is)
So ( with downtime, maintenance, load leveling and so forth), we are talking adding around 15 full size power plants PLUS full national distribution just to handle this EV load ( nothing else)
(that’s full size which would probably have to be broken down to smaller units spread all over)
I can assure you this is all the low end on requirements and not accounting for raw energy to be converted to electricity.
This would take TENS OF TRILLIONS of dollars to do and decades.
This is not realistically possible.
But, but, the failed mayor of South Bend and Dementia Joe said it would!!
Could they be wrong (highly rhetorical)??
All that needs doing is to pass another law.
There are 108 million cars in the United States. Hey, why spend one minute to look it up when you can be a lazy liar just like AOC, but with different triggers? LOL
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2019/mv1.cfm
Aww, you must be JD’s sock puppet.
Listen up Sh!t or Brains and get educated by we who are superior to you who have forgotten more than your knowledge void-talking point link posting @$$ actually knows on the subject.
First, I’m a PE who deals with this and professional member of IEEE- what exactly are you other than a google drone? I would like to know your actual qualifications relative to the subject and what have you actually don in the respective field?
Links are links and what they are- I have access to the actual studies and the peer reviews so enlighten me because I’m not impressed. I can then take you to the molecular detail because I actually AM a qualified SME on the subject. (That means my comments ARE an “authority” on the subject as much as all the rest)
Actually, your conduct clearly shows a void of the subject matter knowledge because you cannot discuss anything intellectually or expound on any point- all you can do is throw link out there ( which you yourself don’t fully comprehend) and then throw around accusations like Mattie did about “lawyer” J. Noble Daggett in True Grit minus her youthful charm.
What point(s) would you further like me to correct you on?
I’ll give you a class and learning experience on this that even you could profit from in spite of your puerile juvenile trolling
Listen up stupid, lazy wingnut. You claimed that there are 287 million registered cars in the United States. You are typical lying nutcase. The only difference between you and AOC is your triggers. You are just as crazy as she is, moron. LOL
@ cranky the whiney one
YOU>>>Listen up stupid, lazy wingnut. You claimed that there are 287 million registered cars in the United States.
No I quoted an official source, here’s the cite
https://financesonline.com/number-of-cars-in-the-us/
No lie, no nutcase- just facts and data without all the ad hom (A concept you will never grasp)
Their utopian ideas are based on somehow eliminating energy scarcity. But they never figure out that has to come first. You have to have antimatter or cold fusion or a universe bridge (The Gods Themselves, Asimov) before you can do the whispery cars thing.
The official source is the Federal Highway Administration, lazy stupid wingnut. LOL
Nowhere near enough power generation, the lazy, stupid, paranoid winger lied. Now let’s try some facts. I know, I know: Like every “progressive,” you hate facts. The only difference is that for you, a fang-dripping, lazy nutcase, the triggers are different.
Still: Last year, the U.S. generated 4.1 billion megawatts of electricity. Lots of zeroes. Now imagine God or Satan (take your pick), or cosmic rays or whatever, instantly replaced 100 million gassers with EVs. They would use 360 million megawatts. The result would be a 9% increase in electricity demand.
The overwhelming majority of that use would occur at night, which is when 90% of EV charging happens. Guess what happens at night? Should I let you in on secret knowledge? Here goes: Electricity demand drops off in a major way. No need for new power plants.
But those are facts, and you are pathetic, stupid, lazy, and paranoid. Just like the “progressives,” only with different stones in different spots in your shoes.
Butt-head, with one qualification: sexual.
Actual knowledge of the subject matter of the agencies those guys oversee is a disqualification for the job
Where does this magical thing called “electricity” come from? Can we harness it from the flapping wings of butterflies?
What electrical grid anywhere will support doubling electrical use?
I’m not sure I’m going to make it through the Biden Administration. (And probably tens of thousands haven’t already, being killed in Ukraine and elsewhere because of a weak, weak, president.)
When are the Legal Insurrection Zoom Support Groups?
From the outlet on the wall!! -AOC
Can we harness it from the flapping wings of butterflies?
Ack!!! Can you imagine the number of hurricanes that would be involved in that?!
/cliche
Doubling electrical use, it lied. LOL
Look, winger, there are pluses and minuses to EVs. But you didn’t even bother to check. The only difference between you and the typical “progressive” is what your triggers are. LOL
Who are the mythical “we” this pretend bike riding, ass-clown yammers on about? Does he include himself – you know, the guy who gets baby formula for his twins while everyone else are participants in the Hunger Games?
Pete Buttigieg is setting up an institutionally racist system by his own standard (not mine but I don’t count for this evaluation).,
Instantaneous electrical demand is what causes your circuit breakers to trip. There are plenty of home power panels that can’t handle 50 refrigerators firing up all at once. All inadequate panels have to be replaced at higher ratings.
All power panels are limited by the local grid. If you ask nicely, the electric company will allow you to upgrade your power panel to a higher rating until they just run out of spare amps in the neighborhood grid. The next and every subsequent person to call gets told no until the electric company gets around to upgrading the neighborhood.
Neighborhoods that don’t have adequate capacity to upgrade everyone are going to be disproportionately poor neighborhoods and because the poor are disproportionately minority, they’ll also be minority neighborhoods. Decades from now, some race-hustling twit will identify Buttigieg’s actions as institutionally racist using Buttigieg’s own process to identify racist highways.
But we’re supposed to ignore the hypocrisy.
Reality is something that the progressive fascists ignore when it’s inconvenient. They ignore the fact that socialism is an economic failure. They ignore that citizens don’t want to waste their money on global warming and electric cars. They ignore that citizens want our borders to be enforced. They ignore that people don’t want to pander to trans people because they are mentally ill.
As I recall … for the consumer … the break even point for a car fueled by gas is about 7 years … and for an EV it’s about 14 years. It’s been well covered in the TED talks. Not to mention … we’re not building power plants and they have to be fueled somehow, we have no EV infrastructure of the scale that is needed, batteries require rare materials that are scarce and whose price will skyrocket and the must be disposed of at their end of life. We’re mostly shifting emissions from the tail pipe to the power plant. These are problems that will take decades to address rather than the 10 – 25 years as everyone hopes.
So, what you’re saying is that before you even reach the breakeven point on an EV, you have to start worrying about the battery losing cells.
Yes
Here is a breakdown of how far you can drive with used car I bought for my kid 3 years ago. vs the cheapest used tesla I could find.
50,000 miles worth of gas at $10. This also assumes that the battery in a 10 year old tesla will even hold a charge at this point so you don’t have to spend $20,000 for a new battery (provided they make a pack for the 10 year old tesla). Also assumes no cost for electricity
2012 tesla $33,590
2001 cavilier $2,400
difference $31,190
mpg 16
Gas $ 10
Gallons @ price 3,119
miles 49,904
For starters, why a Tesla? You can get a new Chevy Bolt for half the price of a used Tesla. Now let’s do the numbers.
At $10/gallon, that Cavalier costs 62.5 cents/mile for the fuel. At my cost of electricity, a Chevy Bolt (or Tesla Model 3, if you want to spend too much money) costs 2.6 cents/mile for the fuel. Even at pre-Bidenflation gasoline cost of $3/gallon, that Cavalier gas hog will cost about 19 cents/mile.
Our electricity is cheap, only 9.63 cents/kWh. The U.S. average is more like 14 cents, and some places (California, Massachusetts, Hawaii come to mind) a lot more. Translate: At the U.S. average, the EV’s fuel costs 3.8 cents/mile. In those three states, 7 to 9.4 cents for the fuel, compared to 19 cents for the Cavalier at $3 gas and 62.5 cents at $10 gas.
There are definite tradeoffs with EVs — range, charging time, high cost of batteries — but the fuel is much cheaper. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is either ignorant or lying. By the way, an EV battery should easily last 10 years. I have a 10-year-old EV and the battery is fine. I also have a compact gasser SUV and a 1-ton diesel pickup truck, and am not any kind of EVangelist.
That said, one major advantage of EVs is that they are much cheaper to use. More expensive to buy, but manufacturing economies of scale are narrowing the difference.
It is not just the financial tradeoffs, but the core “green” issue as well. I have read that creating an EV is much more fossil fuel intensive than an ICE car, primarily due to creating the battery and mining the minerals required. How long it takes to break even on that then depends on the fossil fuel use of the charging power plant. The article indicated a few years to breakeven in a Scandinavian country with a lot of hydro power to something like 10 years for heavily fossil fuel power plants. Then we have not talked about disposal issues of old EV batteries.
In conclusion, adding in the cost of charging stations and new power plants, I doubt EVs will ever be cost effective versus ICE cars. I am also skeptical that they will save much in aggregate fossil fuel use until the “greenies” give up their opposition to nuclear. That is the real long term solution. Welcome to the real world, Sri Lanka and Germany.
You read wrong. Same manufacturing emissions. There are pluses and minuses to EVs. The EVangelists deny the minuses, and the wingers deny the advantages. I own one EV, one gasser, and one diesel. I laugh at all of you as you trade ignorance.
I guess the Argonne National Laboratory is not good enough for you.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/
I’ve been following EVs for a long time. I am familiar with the GREET model. It’s very complicated, and I’m not currently inclined to dive in again. I can say this much: About 10 years ago, a university in Europe claimed that, in manufacturing, EVs emit more CO2.
I took a close look, and it turned out that their study had materially overstated the materials that go into EVs. I pursued it, and six or so months later they issued a correction. I should add here that I think the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is a pantload. I don’t care about CO2; I have paid attention only because the EVangelists constantly yammer about it.
One thing was clear when I jumped down that rabbit hole. In use, an EV emits about 60% of the CO2 (which — again — I do not think matters one bit) of a gasser. This is using the U.S. national average of fuels used to generate electricity.
In the intervening time, natural gas has zoomed past coal as the #1 fuel use to generate electricity, and it emits about half as much CO2 per kWh generated, so that particular (non-)”advantage” has grown.
Now I ask myself: Do I really want to wrestle with GREET again? I doubt it, but not because I’m afraid to be wrong. I just remember what a complete pain in the a** it was, and I don’t want another nerd-level headache.
Sigh.
Electricity is NOT a source of energy. It is a distribution mechanism.
We can barely light off the air conditioning during the summer, because of both insufficient power plant and distribution.
Meanwhile, we are shutting down power plants.
Comments on this stuff ought to be restricted to those who got better than a “C” in high school physics.
And at least a C in economics.
People with EVs charge them overnight, when power demand is low. Stop being so paranoid and so stupid. By the way, I never called electricity of source of energy. Stop it with the strawman arguments, moron,
Higher demand for electricity raises the prices; and it’s mostly fossil fuels that currently supply the electricity
but the fuel is much cheaper
Until demand makes it oh so much more expensive.
Why would it? An EV is an appliance. If we swapped 100 million gassers for EVs, electricity demand would rise by 9% (see my numbers in a different answer in this thread), the large majority of which would be used at night.
Other than your wingnut ignorance, bile, and paranoia, what makes you think that an extra 9% demand would cause electricity rates to skyrocket? It makes no sense, unless perhaps that you’ve happened on a supply of magic mushrooms.
GM makes crappy cars and is owned by unions who give $500 million to the Democratic Party. A party dedicated to the destruction of our country.
I’d much rather have a Bolt than a Tesla. GM, for all its issues, is a car company. Tesla is a computer merchant run by a nutcase, selling at ridiculous prices. If you want to pay too much, hey, this is America, the king of marketing. LOL
Having ridden in both a Bolt and Tesla (and other EVs), Tesla is by far the best car. I wouldn’t own any of them.
If you happen to get a Tesla that’s not a lemon, they are fun cars, but there’s way too much electronica in those things for my taste. Not to mention that a Bolt costs half as much.
No need to listen to the ignorant poser, Bootygigger, on any subject—his only possible expertise being limited to the exhaust system.
You add all these wind up car to a 50-year-old power grid. You can see why Alfred’s response is “What me worry”.
There is not enough energy to power EVs. The environmental extremists want to undue the Industrial Revolution completely
Not enough energy, it lied. Look, buckwheat, the only difference between you and the paranoid “progressives” is what triggers you. Make up some more arrant nonsense. LOL
For me, it all comes down to one calclulation. The average EV costs at least $10k more than the average new car. I will not pay an extra $10k to end up with a less capable vehicle.
You didn’t even bother to check before you lied. LOL
https://www.motortrend.com/news/2023-chevrolet-bolt-ev-euv-price-msrp/
Buttigieg is stuck on labor and environment arbitrage, shared/shifted responsibility for emissions, and sociopolitical scientific myths, to spread the renewable, intermittent, unreliable, toxic Green blight.
Pete is unduly attracted to electric devices. His nightstand is full of them.
I live w/my widowed father, an 85-year-old, die-hard liberal Democrat who watches nothing but CNN/MSNBC all day. We were talking about the high gas prices last month. I bought a used car almost two years ago & recently paid it off, but I was complaining how much I now had to pay for gas. He suggested that when I want a newer vehicle, I should consider an electric car. I just stared at him, then asked him if he had any idea how much they were. He didn’t. When I told him the average cost is $36,000 he was flabbergasted, admitting, “I’m out of touch with the cost of things nowadays.” When I asked him how I could afford such a vehicle when I earn about $13/hour, he had no answer. I don’t mind my 2014 KIA Rio–just the cost of the gas.
“The more pain we are all experiencing from the high price of gas, the more benefit there is for those who can access electric vehicle,” Buttigieg said.
And for those of us who can’t “access” EVs? I guess we’re just SOL.
Cost isn’t the only issue for “accessing” an EV. Those of us who live in apartments have no practical way to charge up one of those overpriced golf carts, and it’s not realistic to think that will change anytime soon.
A stupid “debate” all the way around. EVs should not be a political football. They have pluses and minuses. I own a gas compact SUV, a one=ton diesel pickup, and a dinky EV that I bought out of the company’s bankruptcy.
The worries about EVs and the electric grid are laughable. Children, electrically speaking, recharging an EV is no different than running a clothes dryer all night. 240v, 30A = about 7 kW into the battery per hour. Typical latest generation EV will recharge in 7 to 10 hours, i.e. overnight when there are no capacity issues.
I also laugh at the idea that EVs will somehow save the environment. It’s just a different propulsion system. Nothing more, nothing less. The EVangelists and the “haters” are idiots. It’s a Rohrschach test for nutcases all around, and that includes the current Transpo Sec’y, who is showing everyone that gays can be just as incompetent as anyone else.
And any idea what load it would put on the grid if we all ran our clothes dryers all night long every night? There would definitely be capacity issues.
BTW, what about in the COLD months when we’re all running our electric furnaces all night long (because that’s when you need them more – opposite of a/c) and we now have to add the load of charging EVs?
You don’t recharge an EV every night. The average car is driven 30 miles a day. EVs are driven less than that, because of their range limitations. The new EVs have a real-world range (as opposed to the hype from EVangelists) of a couple hundred miles on 80% of the battery. Do the arithmetic.
Oh, and they’re charged overnight at least 90% of the time. You know, when electricity demand is very low? Sorry to make sense here. You’ll just have to live with it.
Oh, and the average house has 200A service. Charge overnight like EV owners do, and that’s 30A. Sorry to quote facts. Turns out that wingers hate facts that clash with their unresearched paranoia as much as “progressive” hate facts that conflict with their unresearched paranoia. Wow, who knew? LOL
You asked about the load on the grid. Here goes. Let’s say we swapped out 100 million gassers for EVs, all at once. That won’t happen, but I’m making it simple for illustrative purposes.
– Average EV driven 30 miles/day. (Actually less, but it rounds up to that.)
– Typical EV gets 3 to 4 miles/kWh over a year’s time. More in summer, less in winter. To be conservative, call it 3 miles/kWh. Thus, 10 kWh/day, or 3,600 kWh/year, or 3.6 mWh/year
– 3.6 MWh/year (x) 100 million = 360 million mWh
– U.S. generated 4.1 billion mWh in 2021.
– 360 million/4.1 billion = 9%
Mind you, the overwhelming majority of EV charging happens overnight when power demand is low. An extra 9% wouldn’t matter. Now, it’s a big country so there will always be quirks and exceptions. Still, the idea that mass EV adoption will crash the grid is stupid, unresearched, paranoid winger nonsense.
Yeah, yeah, I sound like the EVangelist. I am not that, at least until batteries can hold a lot more juice, keep getting cheaper, and recharging them is much faster. Today, an EV is a logical second commuter car. It’s not ready to replace the whole fleet. But the junk in this thread is laughable.
You make some good points, i think the logic is that EV’s only work in conjunction with other measures. Like for example scaled recycling of batteries, a clean energy grid system etc. Its one piece of a bigger picture
Thus far, there are hardly any EV batteries to recycle. As soon as there are enough of them to make a business out of it, they’ll be recycled. It’s going to happen. A short web search will confirm it. There’s no need for a “clean energy grid system” (whatever that is.) Electrically speaking these things are just another household appliance.
How the juice is generated doesn’t matter one bit; what matters is that there’s juice. It can come from coal, nukes, solar panels, natural gas, windmills, or misbehaving teenagers on treadmills for all it matters.
I routinely tell the EVangelists that they’re just cars, not a cause. What’s darkly humorous, and which every wingnut will deny, is that by making EVs into some sort of monsters, they play right into the hands of the EVangelists. They’re only cars. Really, they’re just cars.
The administration’s goal is 50% adoption of EVs by 2030. Welcome to Kuku land. Let me count the ways that make the goal absurd.
1. Insufficient infrastructure (charging stations).
2. Cost to install a charging station at home ($2,000 on average).
3. Battery life & cost to replace it.
4. Lack of trained mechanics to work on an EV.
5. The present electrical grid can barely handle the present load.
6. Quality of the EV resulting from inadequate quality control.
7. Lack of range, particularly when towing a trailer (see 1, 2, and 5)
8. Lack of space to store or recycle used batteries.
Remember the save the earth claims? The claim was that we were destroying the planet through litter, water pollution, oil drilling, fracking, and mining.
1. EV construction requires plastic; ergo, we must drill or frack to obtain the necessary petroleum products to make the plastic and lube the car.
2. Strip mining for minerals used in the batteries.
3. High energy costs to build cars and construct the plant.
4. All production line equipment is made of metal: high manufacturing costs and more mining.
5. EVs must be transported from the plant by train (diesel) and from the railhead to the dealer (more diesel).
6. Dealerships must be remodeled to accommodate new maintenance equipment (electricity).
Approximately 80% of automobiles on the road are purchased used. Anecdotal evidence shows that used EVs will require new battery packs. At present, there are few battery packs available.
Magic.
Most of your criticism seems to be based on things that equally apply to gas powered cars making them moot. Batteries can be recycled it just needs the infrastructure to do it
What credentials, other than being gay, does Butt-Edge-Edge boast? The only skill I can detect is that he is a master of speaking endlessly without actually saying anything.
He did fuck up race relations in the piss-ant town he was mayor of. That’s about all he has accomplished, as far as I can tell. I’m sure his mom thinks he is cute.
I understand he also did a lousy job of getting the potholes fixed.
You obviously hate homosexuals. Me too!
The song “Red Barchetta” by Rush seems very prophetic these days.
Average driver does 15,000 miles per year. At 25 mpg (generous, I know) that’s 600 gallons per year. At $4.00 / gallon is $2,400 per year. An unsubsidized EV runs north of $50k. That means that the mere purchase price – not counting actually charging the battery to use it – is some 20 years worth of gas for your ICE car.
There is no economic advantage here at all. Meanwhile, we don’t have EVs powerful enough for today’s semi-truck drivers, but they’re all paying the higher gas prices anyway.
A Secretary of Transportation who cannot even do arithmetic: a gaggle of Congress-folk who don’t have the brains to challenge him on it.
Chevy Bolts go for about $30K. The price differentials are narrowing as batteries get cheaper. “We don’t have EVs powerful enough for today’s semi-truck drivers.” What drugs are you on?
Checked the price of lithium lately?
3X what it was in 2015.
I’m not worried at all. Lots of lithium in the world, and as EV battery recycling kicks in there’ll be less need for mined lithium. Per vehicle, anyway. You know, like lead-acid 12v batteries? Today, 99% of the lead in those batteries is recycled, and recycled lead provides half of the lead used today.
As EVs become more common, there will be money in recycling the batteries and it will happen. You could always have a diligence attack and look it up.
North of $50K, the winger lied.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/2023-chevrolet-bolt-ev-euv-price-msrp/
Most of these comments belie complete and laughable ignorance. They remind me of J.P. Morgan’s father, who adamantly refused to consider his son’s desire to put money into Thomas Edison’s parlor trick, electricity. Do any of realize just how stupid and hilarious you are?
The big difference isn’t conservative vs. liberal, but rather which triggers set off the paranoid nutcases. Yammer on, morons. It really helps when you don’t know anything. And here you think the “progressives” patented stupidity? Not hardly. LOL
If you just passed on a better analysis of the numbers you might gain some converts.
Your arrogant insults and hubris lead me to believe you’re not really as smart as you think you are about this topic.
I will forget more about EVs than the moronic commenters here will ever know. I routinely insult brain-dead “progressives,” and they reply with Miss Manners lessons. The only difference between you and them is what triggers you. LOL
Why are you here if you believe everyone is stupid and moronic? If your goal is to lecture, we get enough of that from Biden and his administration If your goal is to persuade, insulting people doesn’t appear to be a very useful way to do that.
I’m vitiolic in this thread because I have very little patience for five-star idiots spouting paranoia and lies. LOL
You’re not just vitriolic, you’re an ass.
So, you keep throwing out numbers and people keep ignoring them because no one wants to listen to an a**hole.
So first you wanted numbers and now you don’t because you don’t like me. Waaaah! Poor child, make me a sammich. LOL
So you admit to the hubris and the trolling.
You are a typical nutcase. You and AOC are siblings under the skin. Pathetic, stupid, and willfully ignorant. Thanks for your epithet. I wear it as a badge of pride. I know what I am talking about. You just make up whatever lie suits you.
The EV BS is hitting resistance based upon the growing knowledge of their limitations.
1. Production capacity doesn’t exist
2. Market acceptance doesn’t exit
3. Early adopters have already purchased
4. Second / third wave adopters have already purchased
5. Currently unsolvable problems for EV:
A. Lack of a a comprehensive recycling plan for old batteries
B. Significant cost for replacement batteries
C. Access to sufficient deposits of lithium to produce batteries
Then we look at at electricity demand. How much additional electric generation will be needed to support EV once the reach 20% marketshare? 50% marketshare? What will fuel that increased electric demand? Will it be generated locally where the majority of the EV are used; Cities?
Will these Cities protest NIMBY for creating local electricity plants to support the increased electricity demand created by their own environmental regs, policy and lifestyle choices of their residents?
Will resource rich Red States voluntarily build the electric plants in their States and string high power transmission lines via eminent domain to send the electricity to out of State consumers? Voters in those States may be unwilling to bear the environmental costs and other negatives of EV when the derive little benefit. That sort of resource exploitation might work in fiction like Hunger Games but is unlikely to get political support from average voters.
Other way around. EVs are getting cheaper as manufacturing scale economies kick in. A 2023 Chevy Bolt stickers for <$30K. EVs have limitations beyond price: range, charge times. Today, an EV with a 60 kWh battery (typical in the newest generation) makes for an economical second car for commuting and errands.
EVs most commonly charged at night, when electricity demand is low. They are appliances, or should be seen as such. As appliances, they charge from a 240v/30A circuit. Same as your clothes dryer or oven.
If we instantly swapped out 100 million gas cars for EVs, electric demand would rise by 9%. No new plants would need to be built, because 90% of charging happens overnight at home.
Here's a stunning idea: Try to actually know anything about a subject before yammering about it. Otherwise, you just sound like a "progressive" with different triggers.
RC
I didn’t mention price of EV themselves at purchase so I don’t see why you lead off with that, especially given your vitriolic last paragraph ‘know something ….before yammering’. So lets skip that Mr Kettle.
Your choice to substitute your preferred talking points instead of the issues I raised is telling. Very common tactic to deflect and dodge when one is confused or unprepared or unwilling to acknowledge the holes in ones position.
However much ADDITIONAL electricity is required is in excess of current delivery capacity and some portion of that will require new generation capacity. You implicitly acknowledge that. I contend that the blue enclaves most desirous of EV should internalize the costs involved.
Red States should not be expected to shoulder any burden environmental or aesthetic to supply additional electricity for EV to these blue enclaves. Hell I would require each Congressional district to produce 70% of the power they consume and if that means a big nuke plant or coal fired plant on Manhattan Island tough noogies.
No doubt EV have a place in consumer CHOICE as a primary vehicle in dense urban settings or a second vehicle in other settings. I don’t argue against that. I do argue that large scale adoption of EV will:
1. Require additional power generation
2. The costs should be borne by the communities where the majority of these EV will be located.
3. Rural and Red States must not be expected to bear the cost environmentally or aesthetically of high voltage transmission lines and new electricity generation plants to fuel EV in other States or CD.
Use of EV has costs. The proponents should be willing to internalize all those costs while being prevented from externalizing them, as so often has happened in the past.
FYI a Chevy Bolt won’t fulfill my needs nor will the F150 lightning based on independent test data showing a range of 90ish miles pulling a trailer. Call me when that’s at 300 miles minimum with a 20 minute time to 100% charge.
I think price, range, and slow recharging are the major selling objections beyond simple inertia. By the way, I’m not an EVangelist. Oddly enough, they hate me as much as the crowd in this thread does. I wonder: Is it that I’m the only EV driver with an NRA Life Member decal on the back window, or is it that I will not bullsh*t about performance and problems?
No way would I get an electric pickup truck. Not until and unless the battery chemistry is radically improved. I think it would take a breakthrough. There’s a steady stream of hyped breakthroughs, and they have yet to materialize. Batteries have come down in cost because of manufacturing scale economies, but that’s not sufficient for trucks.
The big issue with electric trucks is that lithium batteries don’t have enough energy density. I’d have to think it through on how big a battery would need to be before I’d consider an electric truck, but I think it would become self-limiting because of the weight of the battery.
Yes, I agree: EVs get killed by towing. I generally don’t like to watch online videos, but a year or so ago I forced myself to spend a half-hour on a test of Tesla’s uber-duber SUV, the model X I think. The one with the stupid gull-wing doors and a flimsy trailer hitch, and a rated towing capacity of 5,000 pounds. Totally pathetic to the point where I actually laughed.
On the other side of it — and this is theoretical only — if they ever do truly crack the energy density issue, electric motive power is the best. You know, torque? There’s a reason why every freight train uses electric motors to turn the wheels, with the diesel engines used to generate electricity for those motors. But until there’s a radical and affordable battery chemistry breakthrough, electric pickup trucks will be grocery store queens, not work trucks.
As for the power plants, you and others here simply refuse to be factual or logical. An EV is just an appliance. It’s best thought of as an electric dryer, recharged on a 240v/30A circuit. Given the average about about 30 miles a day and 3-3.5 miles/kWh, that’s an extra 10 kWh a day.
In temperate weather, recharge every three or four days. In winter, every two or three. Obviously, this is an average, and results will vary. 90% of charging happens at home, overnight when electricity use is low. I laugh at the idea that this somehow entails these massive upgrades. It’s arrant b.s. from people who don’t know ANY of the basics about EVs or how electricity is generated, distributed, and used.
Again: No way will I buy an electric pickup truck, but I do think that EVs have reached the point where they are quite viable as urban second cars for commuting and errands.
^To add, I got kicked off of an EVangelist site for laughing too hard at Tesla’s stupid, ugly “cybertruck.” One thing’s clear: Musk and his minions don’t have a clue in a carload about trucks and the people who buy most of them.
That said, it might wind up competing with Ford’s “Lightning.” That’s an F-150, and the typical F-150 is also a grocery store queen, regardless of how it’s powered. It’ll be a cold day in hell (at least until someone cracks the energy density riddle) before you see any electric pickup towing a horse trailer to the rodeo, that’s for sure. LOL
So we agree:
1. As a seldom driven second vehicle or as a primary vehicle in a dense city with short travel the EV has a role.
2. No more high voltage transmission lines are needed from rural States/counties to more urban States/counties. Which would be a problem for CA in short order
3. No subsidies required because a cheap entry level Chevy Bolt exists.
4. State policies that’s mandated x % of EV must internalize the costs. Particularly potential environmental hazard of storing lithium batteries while awaiting the upcoming recycling technology.
So in sum, if someone wants an EV, they should buy it and pay for all the costs and not seek to externalize any of the costs, including potential environmental costs. No sending the old batteries on a barge to some red State or rural county, you keep that in your shed or under your bed.
It’s a big country. There always have been, and always will be exceptions to almost everything. Still, EVs simply do not represent a big additional load, especially given when they are usually charged.
Keep in mind that the new EVs have a practical range of a couple hundred miles between charges. They are not road trip vehicles, notwithstanding the earnest hype from this or that EVangelist. But they are definitely viable as city transport. And guess what? Most people live in metros.
So for most uses, the range objection has been answered. Not for everyone, not everywhere. But for enough people in enough places. The decling cost of batteries is bringing sticker prices much closer in line with gassers. I never would’ve recommended EVs until a couple of years ago, but I am getting a lot warmer on them — warts and all.
Environmental externalities? What, the spent batteries? If that’s a serious point for you, do some research. Thus far, the volume of spent batteries has been low. That will be changing, and as it does, they’re going to be recycled. That industry is coalescing as we yammer. The same thing happened with 12 volt lead acid batteries, once tossed in landfills and now almost universally recycled. It’s going to happen with lithium ion.
We completely agree on subsidies. The EV sector is now sufficiently mature enough to yank them. The economics of EVs are rapidly turning positive for them and negative for gassers by comparison, and that trend will be relentless. Just watch: The free market will kill gassers. Not everywhere and not all at once, but in 15 years things will look very, very different.
Long-haul electric lines? Those things are not generally state-financed or controlled, such as the high-voltage DC line that runs from The Dalles, Oregon dam (not far from where we live) to the Grapevine north of L.A. Oregon doesn’t own that one. I’m 90% sure that the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency, does.
There is all kinds of room to question and oppose aspects of all this, but if the comments in this post are indicative of the opposition, all I can say is “good luck.”
^ One big loser from mass EV adoption will be car dealers. They don’t make their money selling new cars. They make it on used cars and especially on service. Tragically from their viewpoint, the guts of an EV requires MUCH less maintenance than a gasser.
No engine in the traditional sense, but just electric motors that are much smaller and far cheaper. No exhaust systems. No mufflers, no wonky emission controls. No transmissions. No oil changes or lube jobs. There’ll still be some work, but not nearly as much, and it won’t be nearly as profitable.
The car dealer as we have known it since the 1950s is staring down the barrel of a double barreled 12ga shotgun. They have to be scared. At least they ought to be. They’ll go the way of livery stables.
I foresee a cottage industry of teenagers with gas powered vehicles acting as a sort of Uber for the EV losers when they can’t get juice.
Massie claimed that the average household uses 1,800 kWh for A/C. The data from the Energy Information Administration supports his claim.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricity-use-in-homes.php
The average car is driven 32 miles/day, and a 2022 Chevy Bolt gets 3.5 miles/kWh. Squirrels, get on them calculators! Yep, that’s 9.1 kWh/day. (Arithmetic wasn’t racist when I was growing up. I tend to be pretty good at it, but I double-check.)
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=43955
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2019/vm1.cfm
At 10 kWh/day, that would come to ~3,600 kWh/year (rounded for ease of use here) for a Bolt. He claimed 4x when it’s actually 2x, and probably somewhat lower. In that one video clip, he said “the numbers are important.” Hmm.
For the EPA result, use the reciprocal (that 1/x button) of their estimate of 28.1 kWh/100 miles for the Bolt, which is 3.56 miles/kWh.
For the FHWA table, use either the the first column, light duty short wheelbase, or the seventh column, all light-duty vehicles. The difference between the two columns is immaterial. I used 2019 numbers because 2020 and ’21 were heavily reduced on account of covid, and were unrepresentative of ordinary driving habits.
EV miles driven are going to be less than the light-duty totals because of their short range. How much less, I don’t know. There’s no hard data that I know of. Some years back, the Wall Street Journal said that the average EV is driven 9,000 miles a year. This makes sense to me, given how and where EVs are used, but I view it as hypothetical and it’s not in my numbers. As EV ranges improve, I expect the average miles driven to become closer to conventional light vehicles.
Thus, the my numbers I’ve given are less for EVs than the reality almost certainly is. When I argue against EVangelist b.s., I’ll go the other way and tweak the numbers in favor of EVs. The adjustments are small, but intended as a show of good faith to both sides by giving the benefit of any doubt to my debate opponent.
First they came for your gasoline cars.
Then your portable gas generator
Then for all gas rec vehicles.
Then for all gas motor sports
Are nightclubs really necessary?
And when they took all the cross-country skis, there was the Holocaust.
Those night sporting events will need to go to free up juice for the grid. For the greater good.