Tags
battery storage, brand loyalty, Chinese battery makers, climate change, economic suicide, Electrify America, EV charging, Ford F-150 Lightning, Motor Trend, net-zero, Tesla
Ford F-150 Lightning
credit: motor trend
As I’ve so often observed, gentle readers, I never intended the EV archive to increase so quickly. However, largely because the Biden Meat Puppet Administration is so determined to impoverish and destroy America in the name of saving the world from Climate Change!, we are inundated with all manner of lies about energy in general and electric vehicles in particular. So I do my part to provide “disinformation,” “misinformation” and “conspiracy theories,” otherwise known as “science” and “the truth.” Thus it’s time once again for another electric vehicle update. We begin with this late 2022–things haven’t changed–Forbes.com article on EV charger issues:
Electrify America reported they conducted 1.45 million charging sessions in 2021. They announce that with pride, but it’s worth noting that they had around 3,500 charging stalls at the end of 2021, and around 2,300 at the start, for an average of just under 3,000. So that works out to a rough average of around 1.25 charging sessions a day per stall, a shockingly low number. They began the year with just 0.5 sessions per day and grew to the larger number by the end of the year.
Of course, as an average, some stalls would see far more and some less, and they would see more on some days and less on others. As such many stalls would not see use on many days, while others might get a line at certain times.
EVs continue to comprise only about 1% of all vehicles on American roads, so these low numbers are hardly surprising.
According to EA, they distributed 41 gigawatt-hours in 2021 in this 1.45 million sessions, for an average session of around 28 kWh — which amounts to 80 to 120 miles of range per session, much less than the capacity of most modern cars.
The article ignores the obvious: drivers aren’t going to wait around for hours to fully charge their EVs. They charge just enough to get them home or to the next charger, which may or may not be working.
These small numbers are surprising because Electrify America is the largest of the non-Tesla charging network (though a fairly distant 2nd to Tesla.) It’s unlikely any of the others are doing much better. The number is certainly not enough to support the cost of a charging station, though today that cost is handled by government subsidies, and particularly in the case of EA, due to the large penalty VW had to pay over the dieselgate scandal, which is what got EA started. Based on data from subsidy applications in California and Texas, installation costs anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 per stall, while Tesla manages a much lower price.
As I’ve recently written, in Wyoming this cost/profit disparity is going to prevent any wide-spread distribution of charging stations, regardless of government subsidies. What businessman is going to buy a federally mandated charger in the middle of nowhere that will never turn a profit? Government absolutely should not subsidize technologies and/or products that can’t stand on their own merits. At Powerline, John Hinderaker provides actual, scientifically reproducible truth:
The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Lab has just released a study showing that in 2021, US privately-owned plugin hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) ‘saved about 690 million gallons of gasoline.’
But that is a huge exaggeration because fossil fuels provide 61% of the electricity in the US … so only about a third of that apparent savings is a real reduction in fossil fuel use, the equivalent of maybe 130 million gallons.
The Argonne report also says that from 2010 to 2021, EVs have saved 2.1 billion gallons of gas. So let’s be generous and say that in 11 years, EVs have saved about a third of that, the equivalent of about 750 million gallons of gas.
Now that sure sounds like a lot of gasoline, three-quarters of a billion gallons.
However, as always, a sense of perspective is required. The US uses about 370 million gallons of gas per day … so that’s only about two days’ worth of gas.
I say again. Over the last eleven years, electric vehicles in the US have saved Two. Days. Worth. Of. Gasoline.
But surely there must be some cost savings?
Direct taxpayer subsidies for EVs have cost you and me $10 billion dollars to date, and we’re on the hook for more. The government just extended the EV subsidy until 2032 and removed the cap on the number of vehicles eligible for the subsidy.
It gets worse. The US government also just approved spending an additional $7.5 billion of taxpayer money on EV charging stations.
So to date, we’re spending TWENTY-THREE DOLLARS for each gallon of gasoline saved … economic suicide.
Oh. So as usual, government is lying to us. But who you gonna believe? Them, or your own lyin’ eyes and pocketbooks? Surely the government isn’t wasting billions on purpose? Newsmax.com explains not to call them Shirley, and yes government is:
The United States will introduce incentives on Jan. 1 for delivery firms and other companies to switch to electric trucks as part of a broad push to get polluting, workhorse vehicles off roads and out of neighborhoods.
The first-of-its-kind incentives, established under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will offer tax credits of $7,500 or $40,000 depending on the size of the electric vehicle (EV). Delivery companies like FedEx and Amazon.com would qualify at the $7,500 level for many of their electric trucks.
Those tax credits can be combined with voucher programs in California, New York and other states that are spending billions of dollars to convince companies to switch to zero-emissions vehicles. The IRA’s commercial EV credits do not have “made in the USA” rules that apply to passenger cars.
And how is that working out?
Paul Rosa, senior vice president of procurement and fleet planning at Penske Truck Leasing, said the EV incentives may prompt purchases by early adopters but they are not enough to lure customers off the sidelines en masse. That is because they do not close the sticker-price cost gap and can come with onerous rules, he said.
‘It still doesn’t get them over the goal line,’ Rosa said.
For some inexplicable reason, Americans continue to resist buying vehicles they don’t want, that cost far too much, that spontaneously burst into unquenchable flames and that don’t meet their needs. They’re kind of stubborn that way, those deplorable God and gun clingers.
Speaking of not meeting their needs, regular readers know EVs are particularly unsuited to anywhere that experiences what is commonly known as “winter,” a weather condition with which Californians were recently reacquainted. Ross Pomeroy at Real Clear Science mansplains:
More Americans are also learning that frigid temperatures affect EVs differently than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, chiefly by cutting into their driving range to a greater extent. While a typical ICE vehicle might have its range reduced by 15% to 25% in below-freezing temperatures, an EV’s range will be slashed 20% to 50% depending upon driving speed, temperature, and interior climate preferences. Combustion reactions occur more inefficiently at colder temperatures, accounting for the range decline in ICE vehicles. But cold slows the physical and chemical reactions in EV batteries to a larger degree, limiting the energy and power the battery can deliver to the motors. Moreover, while ICE vehicles utilize otherwise wasted heat from the engine to warm car interiors in winter, EVs use electric heaters to perform much of the climate control, further draining the already hamstrung battery.
By “interior climate preferences,” Pomeroy means actually using a vehicle’s heater to keep warm and keep the windshield and windows from frosting over. EV manufacturers recommend not using the heater(?!), instead using seat and steering wheel heaters. Normal Americans experienced with winter know how inadequate, even dangerous, that kind of “advice” is. So how has our cold and snowy winter affected EVs?
* EVs are not ready for frigid road trips. I warned about this in August: Driving an EV on the highway in extreme cold will produce a range loss of 40% or more. EV owners of various brands traveling for the holidays shared numerous stories verifying this annoying (and potentially dangerous) reality. Drivers traveling in temperatures at or around zero with a headwind could go only 100 to 150 miles before needing to stop and recharge, depending upon the car, significantly increasing travel time. When they did charge, they had to deal with another disconcerting problem with EVs and winter…
* EV fast-chargers operate much more slowly in extreme cold, if they work at all. The colder the EV battery, the slower the rate of charge that it will accept, making ‘fast-charging’ in subzero temperatures a potentially miserable and plodding experience. Think a 45 to 60 minute charge instead of a 25 to 35 minute one. To top it off, users reported that fast-charging equipment, particularly from Electrify America, often just didn’t work in temperatures below -10 °F. Tesla’s proprietary Superchargers didn’t seem to have the same reliability issues. The generally sorry state of charging infrastructure shed light on another takeaway…
Imagine taking a winter trip and finding yourself down to perhaps 20 miles of battery capacity, and having to wait an hour or more, in the cold without heat, to get to an occupied charger, only to find it won’t provide as much charge as it should, and might not work at all. Also consider your EV is showing 100 miles of range. Who is going to drain that down to a mile or two? For winter, 100 miles of range really means around 60, just to be safe and not freeze to death. Take the link and read the rest. Let’s take a moment to check in on Ford’s wundertruck, the F-150 Lightning, which is, actually, on fire:
Ford Motor has been forced to suspend production on its electric F-150 Lightning pickup due to a battery fire.
Apparently, the electric pickup was sitting in a holding lot being charged when *poof*.
Days after the fire, “Ford suspended production and issued a stop-shipment of the vehicles to dealers,” reports CNBC, adding, “Ford said it is not aware of any incidents of this issue in vehicles that have already been delivered to customers and dealers.”
Ford said Friday its battery supplier, SK, has started building battery cells again at a plant in Georgia but it will take time “to ensure they are back to building high-quality cells and to deliver them to the Lightning production line.”
‘The teams worked quickly to identify the root cause of the issue,’ Ford said in a statement Friday. ‘We agree with SK’s recommended changes in their equipment and processes for SK’s cell production lines.’
Uh, Ford is going “to ensure they are back to building high-quality cells…?!” They weren’t building high-quality cells in the first place?! That’s kind of important as these batteries can spontaneously combust, even explode, and are brutally difficult to extinguish once ablaze. As regular readers know, Ford is having serous parts issues, and they’re also going to invest truckloads of cash in Chinese battery makers, which seems something less than “buy American” to me, and rather more like national suicide. We have two Fords, and really like them, but I’m beginning to wonder just how much my brand loyalty is worth. Take the link and read the rest. It’s not encouraging. Let’s take another moment to visit Motor Trend, where they review a year of driving a Lightning:
credit: motor trend
One of the biggest perks of owning an EV is waking up each morning with a full charge. Or at least so I’m told. I’ve been daily-driving MotorTrend‘s long-term 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning for a few weeks and haven’t yet been able to install a Level 2 home charger, meaning I’ve been relying exclusively on public chargers. But that isn’t for lack of trying. As it turns out, getting an at-home charger installed—especially if you’re interested in using your Lightning’s Ford Charge Station Pro bidirectional capability to enable both charging your truck and powering your home with the truck—isn’t as easy as it seems. Poor communication and an eye-watering $18,000 estimate have cooled us on what promises to be the next frontier in EV technology.
So, $18,000 to realize “the next frontier” Ford has been cheerleading? That’s only somewhat less than replacing a battery. Read the rest for a dose of alarming, non-EV cheerleader, reality. Motor Trend has been among the more vocal EV cheerleaders—the Lightning was MT’s truck of the year in 2021 and 2022—but when you’ve lost Motor Trend…
It would also be worthwhile to visit Cowboy State Daily to see why the EPA’s new regulations, and windmill and solar lunacy, are going to cost Americans far, far more, not less. An excerpt:
credit: cowboy state daily
The problem is that there’s no cost-effective reliable way to store energy. A very large battery facility could store enough power for up to 12 hours, but periods in which there’s no wind or sun can be longer than that.
Energy expert Alex Epstein calculated how much it would take to store up enough energy in batteries to power the globe for three days. Based on the price of Tesla Megapacks, it would cost $590 trillion, which is six times the global GDP. And the batteries have to be replaced about every 10 to 20 years.
CSD also has an excellent article that explains why battery storage as a back up to wind and solar, is idiotic on a Biden scale:
PacifiCorp’s 2021 Integrated Resource Plan includes 700 megawatts of battery storage by 2024, and by 2040, the company plans to have 4,781 megawatts of various storage types, including batteries and pumped storage.
The West contains about 25% of the total U.S. population, which means the people of the West consume roughly 1,029 gigawatts of electricity annually. So, if PacifiCorp builds all the storage planned in its 2021 IRP, it will have enough power to serve its customers for 1.68 days by 2040.
Uh-huh. I’m sure that will work in a winter storm, which is kind of when you really need reliable energy. Never mind the reality that the kinds of batteries necessary to achieve these wonders don’t, you know, exist, and such batteries would last only a fraction as long as conventional power plants before requiring replacement. How much would these wonderful, money-saving, net zero conversions cost, anyway? CSD explains:
After challenging the alarmist view of climate change, the documentary interviews engineers on their view of a net-zero energy grid, which is presented as a drastic but necessary solution to a great crisis.
Net Zero means that the amount of carbon dioxide that’s emitted is no greater than the amount captured or otherwise offset, such as by planting trees.
Ken Gregory, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from the University of British Columbia,Vancouver, talked about a study he did estimating the cost of replacing all fossil fuel powered electricity in the United States with wind, solar, and batteries.
The price tag comes to $290 trillion, or $1.1 million for each adult in the U.S. The study also estimated the cost of replacing just 50% of electrical generation in the U.S. with wind and solar and backing all that up with coal- and natural gas-powered generation fitted with carbon capture.
That total cost came to $80,000 per adult in the U.S.
Oh sure, I have that much in my debit account every month, and I’m retired. Imagine how much more people who are working have.
If they were trying to destroy America and impoverish us all—and they are—what would they be doing differently?
Stately McDaniel Manor 
The issue of cross country travel in one of these iceboxes (and I include Teslas in that category) was recently highlighted in western SD along I-90. There are two e-recharge stations currently available, one at Oacoma (near the Missouri River in Lyman County) and the other 125 miles west at Murdo, also on I-90. Last November while on a pheasant hunt we roomed right next to the Tesla chargers in Murdo. In 15 degree F. weather we witnessed a Tesla plug in and charge for approx. 1:45 minutes. At least that was the wait time when we finally finished breakfast, loaded up the gear and dogs and left for the field. The lonely soul in the Tesla was still reading his paperback and “trickle” charging as we left. It should be noted that when we returned after the hunt at 4PM we noticed he had moved on, but his actual departure time was unknown. Are American drivers ready for this level of frustration and physical danger, especially when traveling across the nation in the north country from October to April? I really don’t think so and thnx to SMM, the word is being spread on this lunacy.
Dear petresrapidnetcom:
Thanks. The government’s EV mania is doomed to fail, not only because most Americans will tell them to go to Hell, but because there are not enough rare earths and other materials, and not enough electricity to charge such fleets, particularly as they try to force everyone to do away with gas and rely on electricity for everything in their homes. And as I’ve often pointed out, where are apartment dwellers going to charge EVs? Putting in hundreds of chargers in large apartment complexes is a no-go.
I think the proper response is ‘you can put lipstick on a pig, but it does remain a pig after all’ With that bit of good ‘ol country wit I shall say goodnight Irene.
Telsa/Elon Musk have been thoroughly welcomed in Texas for much longer than is widely understood. Also, “unreliable” renewable energy on a scale that dwarfs, for instance, California.
That might turn out to have been stupid, but on the other hand…
Tesla just anounced their latest generation motor-drives that do not use rare earths at all and are delivering grid scale storage batteries in Texas made of basic cheap minerals that will gradually make wind/solar cost effective here without any subsidies whatsoever. Which will mean we have a flying headstart into being richer than the State already is.
I know, putting charging stations in the middle of Wyoming is just Biden being his mush brain self. But the bigger picture is that being able to (righteously) drive a 1 ton dually at 85mph across the mountains will be far more sustainable when commuters in Houston can do their daily thing powered from windfarms in West Texas.
May I remind yall that there about a million times more urban commuters that Wyoming ranchers.
Hey Rum,
Nice hope, but grid-sized batteries (unless they are magic) will require heavy metals. Those must be mined and the amount of grid-sized batteries needed to float our regular electric needs plus the massive transportation switch that the elites envision continues to be a pipe dream. A landscape of wind towers, substations, electrical lines, and solar farms await the nation (and primarily the west). Besides the environmental destruction that world-wide strip mining brings, the disaster of dead wildlife on windfarms and the total loss of acreage for wildlife and agriculture needed for god-awful solar farms, makes both of these renewables anything but “green”. Unless you buy the lefts “existential threat” bullshit, you need to acknowledge that we have more than enough carbon-based fuels to run for hundreds of years. Why would a hydrocarbon-based society (everything from fuel, clothing, fertilizer, drugs etc etc etc) throw away this substance? Only for political reasons, and that is no good reason. Humans will continue to use hydrocarbons extensively, and not for the “10 years” that our delusional mummy president Joe Biden likes to say (when he can remember to speak, that is).
Dear petresrapidnetcom:
Yes.
Dear Rum:
Indeed, and loads of them in Houston, Austin and the Ft. Worth/Dallas Metroplex. If Tesla’s batteries work, great, but no one has done a demonstration project to prove such things will work on the scale their supporters claim. And even if they do, those batteries–absent unimaginable breakthroughs in physics–will need to be replaced every ten years or so, perhaps even more often, at astronomical expense.
EV and net zero proponents need to prove their idea will work, and will be less costly than current energy sources–that’s their claim–first instead of spending trillions–that’s what it will cost–first on the way to catastrophic failure.
EVs have been available for 11 years. We’re past the early adaption phase and the technology has had a chance to prove itself, or not.
Before all the green energy nonsense the US grid was the cheapest and most reliable in the world. Coming out of the Depression and WWII or forebears were used to a low margin society where you couldn’t afford waste and they could instantly recognize it and reject it. We’ve grown rich enough to have lost that trait. Also, for working in a couple of big box stores I’ve seen the young don’t know how to change a car battery, assemble a children’s bike or do some basic home repairs. Our kids have lost some of the basic core skills to help them understand the infrastructure around them, not just the grid but cars as well.
More fun topics around Green Energy – windmill performance (when do you get 100% capacity) and maintenance costs. Nuclear – how we took electricity that would be too cheap to meter and ruined it (Fuel choice Uranium vs. Thorium; reprocessing of fuel and fuel disposal in general; overall fear and ignorance of radiation).
Cheap and reliable power is a necessity to be a first world economy.
God, guns and gas stoves ya’all
Dear Xoph:
They’re not ready for prime time, and never will be.
“Delivery companies like FedEx and Amazon.com would qualify at the $7,500 level for many of their electric trucks.”
Unless those companies do so just for virtue signaling reasons, they would be stupid to switch to EV’s for that tiny tax break. Delivery companies rely on efficiency to keep costs down and profits up. A combustion engine powered delivery vehicle can easily operate all day on a single fill up, meaning the driver can concentrate on making deliveries. Even on the rare occasion when they have to fill up during the day, it takes minutes to do so and they’re back on the route.
EVs would have a fraction of the range of traditional delivery vehicles and recharging them takes hours. They’d either have to drastically increase the numbers of vehicles they buy (and the number of drivers they hire) or delivery times will get much much longer. Either way, their business model will suffer way more than any benefit they’ll get from that miniscule tax credit per vehicle.
Of course with the leftist bent of most of the major international corporations these days, committing industry suicide in an effort to demonstrate their virtue to the world wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Dear Sailorcurt:
What you said.
EV’s will never become common absent the following two things happening: several orders of magnitude improvement in the charge/storage/discharge cycle and practical fusion power to provide the energy.
“God, guns and gas stoves ya’all”
Amen my brothers and sisters.
The US is 30 years away from having a charging grid to handle all the EV cars and trucks. Right now, they are a novelty unless Ford and Tesla wants to include a gas powered generator with each sale. The entire dream is absurd.
Dear Phil Strawn:
Oh, perhaps 30 years if we put all our national energies and money into building that kind of power grid, but we can’t because Climate Change and diversity, inclusion and equity. Oh yes: also because we’re not stupid.
Mike, this is exactly why I drive a Lexus hybrid.
Dear Charles Robert Henderson:
Good choice.
Well, no, it does not account for the range decline, because it is not the only effect at work. Lower temperatures improve the thermodynamic efficiency of the engines, which opposes that. And other things go on in the vehicle, what with transmission, tyres, and so on; it all has to be taken into account in working out the overall result, not just the combustion reactions on their own.
These people are idiotically doing things the wrong way to begin with, so it is no surprise that the money cost would be higher than doing it right. Those are not the right sorts of battery for fixed sites. Lithium based batteries optimise for weight and bulk compared with other sorts, which is what vehicles need (and yes, I know that they don’t even do that well enough). But fixed sites in the house size to city block size range do better – that is, more cheaply, safely, lastingly and reliably under most use conditions – with nickel-iron batteries, which contra petresrapidnetcom aren’t a case of “grid-sized batteries (unless they are magic) will require heavy metals”. Lead acid batteries win out when there are occasional peak power demands, which come up in submarines and starter motors, or when their lower levels of spontaneous discharging – storage time – are more important. At town size and higher, it becomes practical to use molten salt heat reservoirs and pumped hydro-electric storage if the terrain permits (which is where a power grid helps). But anyhow, only a damned fool would try to do that fixed site energy storage job with the technology of Tesla Megapacks, not with proven and better alternatives.
There is more idiocy there. Any fast discharge battery, even a capacitor, can be scaled up to that power. But what counts is how long it can deliver that – the total energy. Someone, somewhere, doesn’t know what they are talking about.