By Levi Russell
December 05, 2023
My appreciation for our freedom of movement was re-ignited recently when I finished up an engine swap into my rare-but-not-collectable 1995 Ford Thunderbird. It had blown a head gasket and had far more than 200,000 miles on it, so in went a junkyard-fresh 4.6L V8 with only 40,000 miles on the clock, or so said the yard I bought it from.
My use of the term “freedom of movement” on this site goes back to my article in March of 2022, where I pointed out that the Biden administration is hell-bent on forcing us into a mass-transit-heavy society, in part through regulations and restrictions that made it less convenient and more expensive to drive a car. I pointed out that subsidizing absurdly expensive EVs and forcing car makers to implement tech that shuts down cars (allegedly only for drunk drivers) are part of the plan. The totalitarian leftists at the Daily Kos promptly published a hit piece on me, calling me every name in the hysterical leftist playbook.
At the time, those on the fence might have considered this to be a conspiracy theory. Now, though, they’ll have to admit I was right. The NTSB recently floated the idea of limiting the maximum speed a car can be driven. The scolds in the press instantly jumped at the chance to wag their fingers at Americans who dare to drive above the speed limit. Some blatantly stated that anyone who might question giving the state this sort of power are part of some strange, fringe political minority that should be ignored by all sensible people. Of course, it’s easy to see how this might be abused, just like the aforementioned power to shut your car down at will.
A recently published article in the peer-reviewed academic journal Transportation Research tells us that cars, even the supposedly anointed battery electric variety, are far too convenient and that the state must be empowered to “restrict car use.” The authors tell us that converting car lanes to bus lanes have reduced car use in Oslo. No surprise there. The fact that academia is floating this sort of policy should concern anyone who has any inkling of mistrust of the federal government. Truly our freedom of movement is in peril.
Electric vehicles are not nearly as popular as their advocates would have had us believe, as sales are now slumping in the face of rising interest rates and a lack of so-called fast chargers. As we begin to bump up against mined mineral constraints and international relations complications, there’s no doubt the cost of making these glorified toys will continue to rise. A recent Consumer Reports publication shows that, over the last 3 model years, electric vehicles are less reliable than normal gasoline and diesel vehicles. So, several states want to ban the sale of reliable, inexpensive gas and diesel cars and force us to buy less reliable electric cars. Note well that the superior reliability of hybrids is likely down to the fact that car makers who are better known for their reliability make more hybrids. There’s nothing inherent to a hybrid that would make it more reliable than a gasoline engine vehicle.
Even our ability to travel using air travel is under the gun. A CNN op-ed recently floated the idea of limiting air travel through the use of carbon (read: sin) passports. We will be limited to traveling based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the flight. The author wants this applied to cruise ships as well. It’s not hard to see this applied to your car as well. Of course, such rules will not apply to the super-wealthy climate grifters. They’ll be jetting all over the globe for their very important climate conferences.
And it’s not just transportation. In September, Reuters “fact checked” a claim that US cities had agreed to limit meat consumption, finding the claim false. And yet, we are told on a nearly daily basis that eliminating beef consumption is necessary to save the planet. The sin of using coal (but not apparently to create steel) has become the sin of eating a steak. What’s next? Rice? Pork?
Beginning in 2024, the German government will empower local electricity providers to limit the flow of electricity to heat pumps and electric cars. Such limits were the stuff of alleged conspiracy theories mere months ago. Now they’re a reality. Germany’s suicidal attempt to power their grid with nothing but wind and solar, killing off their own nuclear power generation over the last 20 years, has led to energy rationing. It’s not as if this is unpredictable. The unreliability of so-called renewables is common knowledge among energy experts.
It’s sensible for those who are concerned about their ability to choose where and when they travel, what they eat, and when they turn on their heaters and air conditioners to be skeptical of every single attempt to accrue more power by state and federal governments. That skepticism should turn into activism against these power grabs. Anyone who tells you these power grabs aren’t coming is telling you not to believe your own eyes.
Levi Russell is an associate teaching professor at the University of Kansas School of Business.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
Wow !
This common sense thinking is coming from …
KU !
a liberal dominated campus !
Happy days !
Well, it’s the KU School of Business. There are still many sensible, free-market oriented people in business schools. I hope the author has tenure, however.
Thanks, Green. I don’t have tenure and am not even on a tenure track, but KU is, perhaps surprisingly, quite open about what we say in the public sphere.
Peter Ridd thought he had academic freedom of speech until he was fired. I know Australia is different to USA. However,If the university is sucking from the climate crisis teat then you should expect retribution. WUWT may not be obscure as you think. In fact, I would like a flow up in a few months with regard to how the university responds.
I agree with what you have written. My view is that Citroen is making the only BEV that comes close to being useful. For Australia, it would need to have a top speed of 100kph because the cities sprawl. Most of the EVs are show ponies. Hugely wasteful of resources.
“WUWT may not be obscure as you think.”
Well, it claims to be, “The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change”
Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get anyone here in Wokeachusetts to look at it- though I try every day! Here, a site like this is considered beyond the pale.
Delusional people hang on tight to their delusions.
I certainly appreciate the concern, Rick. We are voting on a union for faculty here soon, which I think redounds to my benefit. This is my 9th article on energy over the past 2 years and nearly all have gone out on the Real Clear wire service. This is my second to be picked up by Zero Hedge. I was also promoted during this time period, so I’m feeling fairly safe. But again, I agree there are concerns. I’ll be sure to update here if I get a negative response.
US EVs in 2023 are set to reach 9.0% of sales, up 23% from 7.3% of sales in 2022
Through November 2023, over one million EVs have been sold in the US.
A +23% increase year over years is not “imploding”. You title is at least deceptive. believe it is a deliberate lie from someone biased against EVs.
I have nothing good to say about EVs and I don’t want one. But I also do not like biased authors claiming +23% is “imploding”.
Nice to see someone writing rubbish again!
Come over to Europe and see what the major manufacturers are thinking about EVs.
It’s a developing nightmare.
French EVs at least are nuclear powered.
The rest are mostly coal or gas powered or something similar.
They are talking about EVs being suicidal for industry, and as the subisidies go back down (as the socialists run out of money), so do the sales which are now dropping off sharply.
On top of this are the serious safety questions, which put 48 French electric buses into a field to grow weeds, the total inability to recycle the old batteries – which last about 2-3yrs making the resale value of a fresh EV about sweet zilch..
The final score will be death by immolation which an EV fire will certainly cause to any channel ferry or long tunnel almost as sure as clockwork, as there is no strategy in place whatsoever to remove the threat.
Watch this space, the day there is a major EV tunnel caused fire akin to Mont Blanc, it will make the Moorgate tube disaster look like a kid’s playground.
..and finally the chinese industry chain which has already made EU made EVs totally uncompetitive, so why give the CCP even more dosh, to blow on their subprime housing crisis????
Thanks for commenting, Richard.
You may not know this, but op-ed authors almost never have a say in the titles of their articles. This is the privilege of the editor. I’ve only been asked for input into my title one time and it wasn’t this time.
Did you read the article? I cited 2 regarding falling EV demand, one directly citing them sitting on dealer lots. The bulk of the article was about the left’s attempt so curtail our freedom of movement. I would think rather than accusing me of being a liar you might have asked if I’d come up with the title!
Vehicle sales in general are up this year because last year was so dismal. Might check into some statistics classes before you go inferring a lot from the data you see presented in pro-EV headlines.
To clarify my response about statistics, November 2023 sales are up 10.2% over the same month in 2022 for all cars in general, so the 8% figure you cite isn’t as impressive as it seems.
Sorry, 23%, not 8%
It’s nice to have an author of a post to comment.
Glad to have my piece posted here, Jim! Thanks for reading.
I hope this is well received. I wouldn’t mind a follow-up report on the reaction, or non-reaction you get.
I agree. I don’t think it will get noticed, but I will let y’all know if I get some kind of official reaction.
I stand corrected from my post above about you being tenured. Keep up the great rational posts sir!
Thanks for your positive comment, Bob. I enjoyed writing it, but wasn’t really happy with my editor’s title on the original piece at RC Energy. Funny thing is that it definitely shows who reads it who doesn’t by their reaction!
liberal? probably liberal by the standards of KS- probably “far right” by the standards of Wokeachusetts 🙂
Just about all colleges and universities, with a few exceptions, have gone “far left”.
That’s why you find radical leftwing enclaves in places like Red State Oklahoma, where the colleges are hotbeds of radical leftwing ideology.
That’s why we get all these college students out marching in support of Hamas terrorists. They have been indoctrinated by Marxists in college into the Marxist Oppressor/Victim ideology and they apply this viewpoint to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the Israelis being the Oppressors and the Palestinians being the victims. They pay no attention to what started this conflict, the terrorists attacks of October 7.
Hamas is the Oppressor of the Palestinian people. Hamas, and their boss, the Mad Mullahs of Iran are the problem.
Israel has a right to defend itself and it is going to do so regardless of how much Biden tries to hold them back. When it’s all over, Hamas will no longer be an effective fighting force.
And when the Israelis get done with Hamas, they can focus on Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then on the Mad Mullahs of Iran.
Meanwhile, Biden’s appeasement favors the Mad Mullas of Iran.
The good news is, the Israelis are not going to allow Biden to define how they defend themselves.
Given the small population of Israel- the number of people slaughtered by Hamas- if you increase proportionally to America- it would be like slaughtering 50,000 Americans. Now, Pearl Harbor resulted in the death of something like 2,400 soldiers- yet we pummeled Japan mercilessly. Germany never attacked America but we pummeled it too. And, we didn’t worry much about how many civilians we killed when the goal was total victory. We carpet bombed their cities and used nukes. But Israel is told to not hurt any civilians. I feel bad for the civilians, but in those first days after Oct. 7, most people in Gaza were cheering that massacre. Maybe when this is all over, the Arabs will realize you can’t wipe out Israel without wiping yourself out.
Most, perhaps even the vast majority of civilians that have been killed, were killed by Hamas. Faulty rockets badly missing their targets and Hamas fighters not caring who gets killed when firing at Israeli soldiers.
My alma mater, the University of Utah was sinking into that abyss. Legislators and the Governor had to step in and call for a resolution protecting the free expression of ideas, and the neutrality of administration and staff in all State-sponsored institutions.
It amazes me that the true function of higher education, the improvement of human knowledge through careful examination, has been lost in the zeal of political agenda.
Marxists target the young and the schools they attend.
We have been asleep at the switch and have allowed this to happen.
But I think people are starting to wake up to this insidious problem, and are doing things to counter this ideology now.
Still, we have a lot of indoctrinated young people to deal with.
“Hamas will no longer be an effective fighting force”
In your dreams!
They just produced another 1 million Hamas militia men by blowing the daylights out of Gaza city.
Netanyahu and common sense are mutually exclusive.
It has been proven, levelling cities and towns in wartime only INCREASES resistance, – Dresden, CologneCoventry and St Petersburg and now Kharkiv and Mariupol, being perfect examples.
Anyone with any common sense can see it coming, once the kids traumatised start waking up, by having legs blown off and seeing their parents reduced to ashes or under zillions of tons of concrete.
Nothing to do with Israel defending itself by murdering another 12 000 – Israel a major player huh? 10:1 murder syndrome and counting.
ALL of them genoicidal NUTTERS in power.
I went to law school there, my son went there, we still have KU basketball tickets (Yay!), and I go to Lawrence a couple times a month. Yes, it is quite liberal. The main library runs on wind only (at least the sign used to say that, next to a plexiglass box showing how much coal was not burned every hour to keep it running). Downtown, they are still wearing masks, the Biden signs are prominent, etc. And it is not unusual in eastern Kansas.
How dumb does one have to be to be a Biden supporter?
Answer: VERY dumb.
I hope he is tenured otherwise he might be looking for a new career after this post.
The low hanging fruit EV buyers are done. More public chargers won’t save EV sales because those that are installed have become wait stations …. sometimes for hours in critical locations. People don’t want to plan trips around charger availability, or non availability, when they don’t know how long the wait will be. If you cannot install a charger at your place of residence you are at the mercy of public charging. Also, it turns out that the “super reliable” EVs are less reliable than ICE cars when you look at the stats of breakdowns according to Consumer Reports. EVs have become niche vehicles for low mileage urban dwellers.
Yes the pool of people with more-money-than-brains has been over-fished…
Not Yet!
A fish is hatched in that pond every day.
There is also (from incidents of which I have read) the very real danger of fires involving EVs.
Right – just ask the captains of the 3 ships transporting Ev and lots of,other expensive Porsche’s, Mercedes, Masarattis etc., that all sank after EVs caught fire
Yes the battery fire problem needs to be fixed.
How?
Another one for the “technology expected soon” cabinet
Diverse energy sources, like diverse foodstuffs are successful for a reason – the world runs out of Cabbage quickly if that’s all we are allowed to eat.
We diversify our energy for a reason – so when the blackouts hit we have gas, or coal, or wood, or candles to heat and eat.
Centralisation of energy is like centralisation of government. It always ends in communism.
Our problem isn’t climate – our problem is totalitarian government objectives.
Nor is it even governments themselves, it’s the agencies they create, to hide behind.
Our governments are toothless wonders, controlled and manipulated by the civil services they themselves create.
“””governments are toothless wonders,
In the UK the elected cabinet refer to ‘The Blob‘
Patently via the toothless and brainless shell that is: ‘Brandon‘ something similar happens in the US – what I understand to be called the ‘Deep State’?
(Nice ‘term of endearment’ for brandon innit, “Deep State of Unconsciousness”
Also Bojo for that matter while he was PM. But there again, is that how anyone would cope with The Blob – get yourself blotto everyday else it would drive you to suicide – like that school teacher and those grotesque ‘inspections’ they all have to endure. Search for ‘Ruth Perry’)
Not a problem here in Rural Western Australia. There is a charging point next town over, just 25Km away. It is never in use that I have seen, which is only on fortnight shopping trips, so I could be wrong. 😉
Damn. 58Kms
“People don’t want to plan trips around charger availability, or non availability,”
______________________________________________________________
That’s right but for every day driving to work, pick the kids up at school, go to the grocery store etc. They’re great second cars. Plug in hybrids are probably better.
You’re perhaps talking USA?
In the UK where many homes don’t have the ability for domestic charging then a small ICE is a much better option. Longer range, 350+ miles for something like a 1Litre C1, I10, or Picanto. A month of school runs and shopping.
For a bigger vehicle a self charging hybrid is better than BEV.
You never see a Picanto on a school run, it is virtually always a medium to large SUV. Likewise the number of EVs you see on the road are normally mid size to large vehicles. It is as if the owners are more concerned about switching to an EV, rather than switching to a smaller, less resource intensive vehicle.
When you add in the manufacturing cycle and the additional year and tear on roads and components from an extra half ton of vehicle weight, most will never end up as a benefit to Gaia.
Few Americans can afford an EV for a second car- and certainly even less folks in most other nations.
Now if only there were suitcase sized nuclear reactors so you could drive for years without thinking about fuel! 🙂
Sounds like we should all go “Back to the Future”…
Here in the UK, that two-faced, little shrimp of a tow-rag, has used sleight of ‘mouth’, to convince the electorate that he is extending the life of ICE vehicles until 2035. What he didn’t reveal, is that the sales targets imposed on the car manufacturers, still applies. Starting next year, they’ll have to sell a market share of 22% EVs. Failure to meet targets, will initially cost the manufacturers around £15K/car. This will escalate with each year. So by 2030, they’ll have to be selling 80% of vehicles as new EVs, and failure penalties up to £18K/vehicle.
Pundits speculate that the penalty costs will be passed on to non EV buyers. Personally, I don’t think that will happen, as buyers will simply veer away from all new car sales. That will really set the cat amongst the pigeons.
All peons need is a sturdy pair of sandals. The lower classes have been getting too uppity.
Perhaps… but the really ‘sturdy’ sandals incorporate rubber (tree huggers) or some sort of polymer (ff) construction… “off with their sandals”!
Oh, I am sure one can make sandals out of hemp or sisal.
I’ve seen sandals made out of old automobile tires.
There ought to be plenty of raw material for making those kinds of shoes.
Jesus boots.
Clogs, made from renewable wood with segs.
Kids could relearn the joy of sparking clogs.
The “proforestation” crowd don’t think trees are renewable- they mustn’t be cut- to save the planet! Better to go barefoot- which is actually supposed to be good for your feet, unless it’s winter. 🙂
Aren’t Birkenstocks the official footwear of the progressive Left?
The upscale progressive lefties drive Volvos.
They would not be caught dead in a car made by union labor!
Hypocrite? In spades
Bernie drives an $80,000 Audie, owned by his tax free foundation, of which his wife and son are employees! All his speaking fees go to his foundation
I wonder how many upscale progressive lefties know that Volvo is owned by the Chinese?
Volvos “were” great little cars.
I was driving in a blizzard one time back in the 1970’s on four-lane Interstate 40, going to California, and was in a Volvo station wagon driving through the panhandle of Oklahoma, going about 60mph with snow on the ground and road, when suddenly I hit a patch of road that had ice just underneath the snow and the car started spinning around to where I was almost going backwards down the road.
And I could see a couple of semi trucks coming up behind me through the front windshield, I was turned so far around, but that Volvo hung in there and I managed to get it turned back around in the right direction and slowed down to about 30mph in the right-hand lane, and those two semis went zooming by me in the left-hand lane, just barely missing me.
There was no way they could have stopped so they just had to maintain their speed and hope I could get out of their way. Which I did. And I attribute most of it to that Volvo station wagon and its superior handling.
It’s funny: I made two such trips to California down Highway 40, and both times I ran into a blizzard.
Volvo wagons had superior handling? Superior to what?
Have you ever driven a Volvo?
I was doing a left turn onto a freeway a one lane on-ramp in Iowa when I hit a patch of black ice. Ended up doing a full 360 before I was able to bring it under control. I was driving a Nissan Sentra.
And doesn’t Biden drive a Corvett? Maybe not often- but he does own one. Shame!
Of course, Joe doesn’t go anywhere alone anymore, but I would bet his family would not give him the car keys and allow him to drive off by himself.
Joe would end up sitting beside the road wondering where he was at.
Last photo I saw was Hunter and one of his business partners taking the car out for a spin. You could see the box of classified documents in the background in Pop’s garage.
Enjoy the Op Ed from Sept 2023:
Is the automobile industry being mandated toward a Death Spiral?
The passion for electric vehicles to help achieve lower emissions in wealthy countries seems to be oblivious to the potentially insurmountable and uncontrollable challenges facing the automobile industry.
Summary: Zero emissions at ANY COST seems to be the direction being mandated by governments and the Environmental, Social and Governance movements around the world, to divest in fossil fuels.
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/is-the-automobile-industry-being-mandated-toward-a-death-spiral
It is an article of faith that centrally-planned industrial policy can magically change the laws of physics and new technologies can be willed into existence through law and regulation.
Any Rand said it best – one can ignore reality but none can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality
So true. And that is what we are witnessing now with EV’s.
Reality is setting in and EV’s are coming up short.
The whole Net Zero push is coming up short. It’s not even close, and will never get there. But you won’t hear that from CO2-phobes.
EVs are only “Zero Emissions” if the mining, manufacturing and disposal parts of the Total Life cycle are ignored.
Good report by Levi. EV’s are good for polluted inner cities and golf carts. Want to go on a cross-country vacation in one? As regards auto speed limits I have always thought a drivers ability and type of car should be color-coded. Like, Ferrari Red for me and my 6 cyl Austin Healy (OK, 56 years ago, now maybe a nice lavender). Forgetaboutit.
A friend of mine back in the early 60s had a British racing green Austin Healy 6cyl.
A true classic sports car.
G’Day Ron,
“Austin Healy”
Ye olde English vehicles. Met my wife-to-be in Pasadena CA, in 1967. She was driving an MG-A. She had friends she visited in Yuma, AZ. A small radiator forced her to make that trip at night, it overheated in daylight hours.
(One of her phone ‘ring-tones’ is “Little Old Lady From Pasadena”. She’s 4′ 11″)
Going up the Grand St Bernard Pass in Switzerland back in 1970 in a friend’s Austin 1100, we solved its overheating problem by opening all the windows and putting the heater on at full blast – you should have seen the engine temperature gauge drop!
Very little of the pollution in these polluted cities is coming from automobiles.
Thanks to pollution control devices, in more polluted areas, the air coming out the back of a car can be cleaner than the air going in the front.
The pollution is coming from industrial and household chemicals.
“Thanks to pollution control devices, in more polluted areas, the air coming out the back of a car can be cleaner than the air going in the front.”
You do talk seriously deranged bollocks at times. Now you wont like this comment, so, what evidence do you have for your silly comment?
The clown returns to prop up his cherished kommie-wagon.
If you think CO2 is a pollutant then you are deranged, but there isn’t a whole lot of nasty stuff coming from cars any more.
I see that Simon still believes that anything he doesn’t want to be true, isn’t.
I’m not holding my breath for a return to sensible transportation and energy policies. One major political party is all-in for the war against fossil fuels. The big-money rent seeking billionaires, corporate interests and phony environmentalists are firmly behind it.
The new automobile situation is worse than described here. If you want a new vehicle from any manufacturer, there’s a waiting list of up to a year duration. However, pretty much all car lots have an accumulating inventory of unsold EVs. The customers don’t want them even when there’s a shortage of conventional vehicles.
Where? Here in the USA there’s plenty of inventory. If you want a Dodge 2500 truck there’s 2 years supply on dealer lots.
https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/new-vehicle-inventory-september-2023/
Dealerships are empty of new stock in central Ontario.
Particularly bad are SUVs.
Here in South Carolina there’s plenty of stock. The local Ford dealer in my small town has 119 new vehicles on the lot. Only 5 are EVs and 19 are hybrid. There are 4 diesel and the rest (89?) are gasoline. Since the only car Ford makes is the Mustang, most of them are SUVs, but they do have some F150s.
I heard an advertisement for Dodge 1500 and 2500 pickups here in Oklahoma yesterday and the dealer was offering to knock $10,000.00 off the price of either version.
I hear there are a lot of Jeeps available. They haven’t been selling well lately. Quality control is given as the reason.
Jeep is middle of the road in JD Powers for quality, The dealer I talked to has a bunch of Jeeps that are either EVs or hybrids that he can’t sell. ICE Jeeps are selling well.
I think Jeep has the largest inventory of unsold cars of all the auto dealers.
Dodge doesn’t sell trucks. And your article doesn’t say anything about the Ram 2500 pickup. There is no truck with a 2 year supply, unless you now have a 60-day year on your calendar.
“Eight of the top-selling 30 models with the highest inventory are domestic trucks and SUVs, led by the Ram 1500 at 119 days’ supply.”
In the UK and for ‘commercial’ vehicles as my little truck counts as, the situation is dire.
The dealer I bought from, 5 years ago, ventured to call me recently to ask if I wanted to trade in for a new one.
I muttered about house-moving expenses and that I’d think about it. He then volunteered that there was a 6 month waiting list for VW Caddys in the UK.
Did I fancy an electric one he wondered. Rhetorically of course, while suggesting that the new electric one would be well in excess of £50,000 (plus 20%tax) = an asking price that made even him wince. Even longer waiting list.
After the call I checked their online stock. In a dealership covering all of South Yorkshire and North Notts, they only had 1 (one) vehicle like mine.
2nd hand, 12 months old and unusually high mileage. Priced at (inc tax), well over 2½ times what I paid for my 6month old low mileage ex-courtesy car
Poor old VW though, they did have that capricious and arbitrary diesel-gate fine to pay – did California spend that $30Billion wisely?
I need to study up on it, why not just plug the car in to the outlet in the garage overnight like they do golf carts? Any voltage conversion should be done within the car.
Probably because the number of amps it needs is quite high.
It is likely you would need to have new service run to your house to accommodate a charger.
And if every car user on your street has an EV then a power upgrade to the local grid is needed.
Overnight charging for the golf car works fine — if you are just trundling down the street a few blocks to the golf course. For a significantly, bigger, heavier car, not so much …. unless you don’t mind the overnight charge being enough to get you a few miles down the road. Want a full charge? You must buy a Level 2 charger, I gather they are not cheap at all, nor is the installation charge, especially if your house needs more electrical work done before the charger is even installed. I once asked a guy on Facebook, who was bragging about his EV’s [unsupported] mileage range, how much extra his charger/installation cost and how much his monthly electric bill increased. The guy refused to tell me, as though it was some kind of state secret.
Almost certainly bigger than he’d like you to know, then…
It was a telling situation about the intellectual dishonesty of ardent EV enthusiasts. I told the guy at Facebook how my ICE car can cross an expanse of the American desert southwest in 9 hours on a single tank of gas that his EV would take two days to cross, if it didn’t turn into an immovable brick from the lack of available charging stations, while all I’d need is a gas can refill if I ran short of my destination. He had no rebuttal to that. When I persisted in my repeated questions about his charger setup cost / monthly electric bill hikes, he accused me of trying to dox his physical address. My comeback to that was a screencapture of my own electric bill where I cropped out my physical address. People would only be able to figure out I lived in a metro area populated with a million other residents. Did the guy genuinely believe I’d send goon squads to beat him up over this matter? I very much doubt that, but he did stop bragging about his EV afterward. Key takeaway is how I don’t want the CAGW opposition censored, I’m glad to hear any evidence they have to support their assertions. What I do endorse is their own self-censorship from their embarrassment of being unable to stand behind the merits of their assertions.
I don’t want an EV parked in my garage. I’m concerned about the fire risk. Sure, the odds are probably low and I’m skittish because it’s new. But if an EV caught fire, we couldn’t put it out.
The odds are low but the danger is high. Precautionary principle says don’t do it.
Typical outlets are limited to 15A, due to the wire size and the breaker at the supply circuit breaker panel. In the U.S., residential panels are limited to 200 A total from the public utility.
The reason for installing a dedicated 240V circuit is that amperage is reduced, which allows somewhat smaller wires than a 120V circuit for the same application.
Residential electrical code specifies 20A circuits for kitchens.
Magnificent, spoken in plain language any high schooler can understand, short and most important honest truthful information. We need information like this plastered all over the country. Repeat it over and over. The most important point for me is that the government does NOT know more than we do. They are not fit to tell us what is best for us. The government messes up everything they lay their hands on. I yearn for a small powerful government that will protect our individual rights, maintain a strong military, protect our borders, uphold basic laws and otherwise stays out of our business.
Ah, Utopia. It will have to come (if it ever does) after the Earth is scorched.
Our Founding Fathers made a heroic try. Politicians and the Deep State have been working assiduously to destroy our Constitutional protections. The States ceased protecting their Constitutional democratic republican rights in exchange for unlimited Federal dollars.
“The most important point for me is that the government does NOT know more than we do.”
In America, our government has forgotten that it’s “government of, by and for the people”. Said by no less than Abe Lincolon in the Gettysburg Address- it’s not supposed to be our ruler.
“I yearn for a small powerful government that will protect our individual rights, maintain a strong military, protect our borders, uphold basic laws and otherwise stays out of our business.”
That’s the dream of every true conservative.
If we did that, we would Make America Great Again.
FJB!
Did you mean “f*ck The Big Guy 10% Dementia Joe “Biden Brand” Brandon aka Robert L. Peters aka Robert Ware aka JRB Ware?” IIRC, the government has proposed a 20+ year schedule for producing copies of his fake emails.
Yeah, all of that.
As Rud said, there will need to be lots more pain to make the average progressive in the street see the light and vote R. I know people like this, they are very idealistic and do not let go easily of long held beliefs – i.e. that the Dems are some kind of Robin Hoods looking to help the lower classes.
Please… not to “vote R”… to vote for Any with Common Sense.
Biden is giving the people what they say they want.
In a June 2023 Pew Research poll, they found that 69 percent of Americans favored the steps to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Two-thirds of the Republicans under 30 supported finding alternate Energy sources while 42 percent of Republicans overall supported finding alternate energy sources.
Ninety percent of Democrats favored finding alternate energy sources.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/
The media has been very quick and effective.
Which probably means “we’ve skewed the data to give the answer we want people to see”
Of course they say that when presented, in a public place or online, with loaded questions designed to make you feel guilty (if you click The Wrong Answer)
In such research polls people always respond to nice things- like saving the planet, but when they feel the pain- they’ll change their minds. If the poll asked if they’ll mind losing the conforts of modern life to save the planet, their reply would be different. Most people with any common sense understand this about polls.
They always forget to add the second question namely- How much a week are you personally prepared to pay/give up to become carbon neutral by 2050?
Ans- That’s up to the Gummint and Biz to take care of stoopid.
That was 2022. That’s not what they asked in 2023. There was no question in their survey that used the term “carbon neutral”, nor was the year “2050” specified. As a matter of fact 68% answered “Thinking about the country’s energy supply, do you think the U.S. should…” with the choice “Use a mix of energy sources including oil, coal and natural gas along with renewable energy sources”. Either your interpretation is quite off or you should read the source and not make up “facts”.
“As Rud said, there will need to be lots more pain to make the average progressive in the street see the light and vote R.”
I think that is starting to happen. I saw some Democrats on tv yesterday who were very unhappy with the way Biden has handled things.
Democrats go to the grocery stores and the gas pumps. They see the difference between the Trump economy and the Biden economy.
Some of them are starting to wake up to reality.
The same government that’s dedicated to unreliable electrical generation and EVs and other insane ideology has an extremely detailed electronic file on every human alive in the country. While they may be too inept to make use of it there’s still an enormous potential for these neo-KGB to make slaves of everyone through a digital empire. Those huge data centers under construction are an unmistakeable sign of totalitarian progress.
I guess they plan on replacing humans with AI.
They truly believe that intelligence is a “commodity”. This will destroy all small business (because they rely on intelligence, fortitude, and perseverance) and leave us with the same color socks in the same size. God help us!
They have records of every email- every phone call.
EV are niche. If priced appropriately I would have one for my daily city commute in Los Angeles area but still have my Ford Expedition for other things. I read the Daily Kos hit piece, dear oh dear what utter juvenile drivel. Make no mistake, the authoritarians want to control almost every aspect of your life. Limited air travel, gas mileage minimums. The war on the motorist is relentless.
It might be because they know the Grand Solar Minimum may make countries very chaotic, and they want to be able to control everything if it gets out of hand.
“Make no mistake, the authoritarians want to control almost every aspect of your life.”
Yes, they do. They want to dictate everything in your life. It’s a psychological illness.
Normal people want to be in control of their own lives. Totalitarians want to be in control of everyone’s lives. That’s the only way totalitarians feel secure.
Don’t think.. just drive!
Awesome, just sent that to about 100 people here in Wokeachusetts.
Biden is just giving the people and the rich what they want.
It’s the media that has brainwashed them and they are owned by the rich who hope to make trillions off of the $US200 trillion in spending to reach net zero by 2050 according to Bloomberg’s green energy research team. Probably most of the politicians are financed by the rich through campaign contributions.
In a June 2023 Pew Research poll, they found that 69 percent of Americans favored the steps to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Two-thirds of the Republicans under 30 supported finding alternate Energy sources while 42 percent of Republicans overall supported finding alternate energy sources.
Ninety percent of Democrats favored finding alternate energy sources.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/
wind and solar are NOT alternative forms of energy. Most democrats are ignorant and stupid.
I tend to be suspicious of reference to a SINGLE poll that is repeated several times in the same thread and in several different articles.
How do you reconcile this specific poll with the MANY polls over several years that show that in the USA “Climate” is ALWAYS at the bottom of voters’ concerns?
We heard you the first time:
Which probably means “we’ve skewed the data to give the answer we want people to see”
freedom of movement. never heard of that one. sounds like something capitalism provided. which of course means that someday capitalism may not be able to provide it. or not provide it to everyone. either way, i want a lamborghini
In the USSR they had “internal passports”. Imagine needing a passport to go from Washington to Oregon or something. Give it time, I’m sure that will be on the table eventually…
it’ll be digital and keeping track of your carbon footprint.
and now that i reflect on it more. the war on fossil fuels is my best chance of ever getting one.
The first, and last, Lamborghini I owned was when I was six years old.
It was about two inches long.
Brand new, coming back from the shop by foot, I was pushing it along the kerb.
Until it ran off into the road and disappeared down the drainage grating forever.
With hindsight, I probably got off more lightly than some Lamborghini owners. 🙂
Recent post from Jo Nova.
Big Car Data: Insurance insider warns they want to force you into an EV, ban insurance for petrol cars, and track youhttps://joannenova.com.au/2023/12/big-car-data-insurance-insider-warns-they-want-to-force-you-into-an-ev-ban-insurance-for-petrol-cars-and-track-you/
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/12/big-car-data-insurance-insider-warns-they-want-to-force-you-into-an-ev-ban-insurance-for-petrol-cars-and-track-you/
A great write up!!
All so true
The best way to retaliate is to keep your gasoline car “for as long as it takes” to vote out the evil doers
Less than a year now.
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Hmmm going twice as far on a gallon of gas has something to say about that.
How is “going twice as far on a gallon of gas” related to reliability?
Transport for London discovered ‘reliability issues’ with their hybrid buses.
There were/are A Total Nightmare and the drivers all hate them.
Guess that’s why they switch to full-electric buses.
Are these Electic Buses the ones which keep blowing up?
AKA roman candles.
My son’s hybrid didn’t go “twice as far” as the same model ICE.
I’ll grant it’s possible they’ve gotten better over the past few years but I would have to see evidence that they can do “twice as far”
Twice as far? When you decide to make stuff up, you don’t hold back, do you.
Regardless, mileage has nothing to do with reliability.
I can see a black market in plug-ins for your car, phone, heating etc, to override government restrictions on energy use.
It happens already – I know I can legitimately buy a chip to alter my engine management system to give me more HP
the car itself is going to report its own energy use and that will be cross-checked against what your home smart meter says – while adding in what you spent at ‘super’ and other remote chargers.
Already, there is No Escape.
A recent Consumer Reports publication shows that, over the last 3 model years, electric vehicles are less reliable than normal gasoline and diesel vehicles.
You’re supposed to catch their electric buses instead-
EV Madness: Electric Buses are a complete DISASTER | MGUY Australia – YouTube
Preferably in their 15 minute cities or less.
Take your wealth and emigrate to the East . .
Take your hard earned wealth and emigrate to the East . .
What’s funny is thousands of Chinese millionaires are said to be moving to the West.
Its a mixture of the sensible and correct and the rather flaky.
The sensible first: its obvious now that EVs do not fit the same market segment as ICE cars. Its also becoming obvious that having enough charging capacity when they become a majority of cars on the road is problematic. In the UK, which can be regarded as the canary in matters of energy, its not happening and it shows no sign of happening. Finally, its becoming obvious that intermittency of so called renewable energy is a killer issue. The plan is to charge all the EVs and heat pumps with power generated from wind, and that cannot and will not be done. Its not even possible to meet current demand from wind (and solar in summer), and certainly not the doubled or tripled demand that the move to EVs and heat pumps would produce.
So the author’s conclusion, that the project on electrifying transport with green electricity will lead to electricity rationing, is correct. A corollary is that it will change the perceived value for money of buying a car at all. If cars are far more expensive than now and aren’t anything like as useful then fewer people will buy them. This is going to downsize the automobile industry. Hard to know by how much, but it will happen. This will also happen because people will hang on to their old ICE cars. Almost all such cars can be run a couple of years longer.
But then we get to the flaky. The tenor of the piece is objecting to any restrictions on car use. I must be the only person on this forum who at the same time thinks that the EV project if implemented to plan will lead to very large and collateral consequences for society and the economy, many of them bad, but also thinks that restrictions on car use, particularly in cities, and particularly of through traffic, are a good idea and would improve quality of life for those living and working in them.
I also don’t have any problem with measures to eliminate drunk driving. There is no reason or excuse for it. Every car with a breathalyser locked to the starting method seems fine, drunk driving is an anti social menace.
Restrictions on car use are not about restricting the right to travel. They are about restricting the use of cars. Its different. Talk to people in the UK who grew up in the low car ownership era, just after WWII. They will be in their eighties now, but there are still some around. Their accounts of walking or biking or playing on roads and streets where now you wouldn’t even consider it give an insight into something that went very wrong. The West drifted into an era where the car became the mass transport method of choice and traffic totally dominates cities and to some extent rural neighborhoods. There is a debate to be had about whether this is really what we want, whether it leads to better quality of life than alternatives.
This is one of the ways in which the EV move is quite wrong headed. We cannot simply swap out the technology and carry on as before. But even if we could, it would not solve the real problem, which is not CO2 emissions, its the effect of mass car use passing through residential and shopping neighborhoods.
One consideration is the death and injury rate our chosen solution leads to. About 1.5 million deaths per year, globally. Lower per capita in Europe of course. But ask yourself, if confronted with a proposal to adopt such a solution, with this known number of deaths and the much larger number of serious injuries, in exchange for the ease of travel, would you vote for it? Would current health and safety legislation even allow it to get serious consideration? Do you think its right?
The Dutch have developed a pragmatic solution of sorts to this, driven by child cyclist accident and death rates. Very expensive and a lot of disruptive civil engineering, but it works. It strongly restricts car use and through traffic, and also provides a cycling and walking infrastructure.
I don’t think we should be eliminating cars, and I think the EV project will crater. But I do think we should be redressing the balance of use of streets and roads to favor people who are walking, biking, shopping, playing in them, and not just driving through them at speed on the way to somewhere else.
“… its the effect of mass car use passing through residential and shopping neighborhoods…”
If shopping, it’s hard to carry lots of groceries and other stuff on a bus or tram. Otherwise, I agree. I once lived in an urban area with roads on 2 sides of that house- roads with big trucks going by 24/7. I now live in a rural area. I now hear very few vehicles especially at night when I hear none. I can walk the ‘hood with no fear of being run over. I like this much better.
Agreed.
I was born in 1942.
Our neighborhood had small shops on every corner, each with their own specialty; baker, meat market, fish store, green grocer etc. I’d walk with mom each day and help carry the bags home for our small volume refrigerator (with a “freezer” about the size of the ice cube tray). Of course mothers were “stay at home” and daily food shopping was one of the expected roles. Like many mom’s, my mother did not drive.
A lot more than the energy source for personal vehicles would have to change before society could return to those former shopping habits.
There’s also a world of difference between living in,say, London – where the public transport is plentiful and runs 20 hours a day – and living in a small town 35 miles away, as I do, and the buses all but shut down at 7.00 pm. Here, one needs a car; in London, one doesn’t.
Recently watched a you tube article from a Tesla 3 owner five years use and experience piece.
His view was electric was fine, it cost overall about the same as a high spec Toyota Camry over the five years with energy and servicing etc.
He was what we might call ‘economical with the truth’ After his five years of driving 125,000 miles he has a vehicle with zero value. No one with a functioning brain will buy it because of the new battery pack that will be required before much longer. The cost for that is somewhere in the $10,000 to $15,000 area.
The Camry at the 125,000 millage is still worth having.
He was also happy to say his out of pocket cost was just $50,000 to buy his Tesla, but that price was a discount thanks to the $7,500 grant he was given by government for the joy of owning his battery car.
I am guessing he imagines state money grows on someone else’s tree, and is no cost to him personally.
Coming from a long time Toyota family, my opinion is that the Camry at 125,000 miles is just getting broken in. Ours have gone well over 200,000 miles and a couple over 300,000. If Tesla can’t do the same without a $15,000 infusion at the 125,000 mile checkpoint, it is not worth my money.
What puzzles me, is that it is easily understood, that the elite want to impose such massive controls on our lives, while they continue to enjoy all their luxuries.
But the minions, much lower down the ‘food chain’, are not only accepting these strategies, but also implementing and enforcing them. Do they not realize, that they too, will be bound by such constrictive policies, and curtailment of their lifestyles? Or do they think, they’ll be allowed to travel and rub shoulders with the elite?
As EV sales growth slows, Mass. car dealers ask Biden to ‘tap the brakes’ on electric transition
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/06/business/ev-sales-biden-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
Not much news about the implosion here. I hope it’s true on grounds of no government mandate without real justification and then it must provide for freedom.
About widespread adoption of the EV, we’re a fast-food nation and they’re trying to force us into a diet of expensive meals that taste worse than fast food served only at a sit-down restaurant.
I turned 80 two months ago and realized that I’ve lived through the best times ever. Some argue with me about that, but one thing is certainly clear and true, I have lived through the freest.
if there was one car that had to be banned, the painfully ugly gas guzzler that the 1995 ford tbird is should be top of the list.
every time you fill it with petrol, you double its value.
Respectfully, this analysis would be much improved by a little more balance. For instance, per Wright’s law, one could reasonably expect that the cost of EVs to fall to ~50% of their current level by around 2030. At that point, they would dominate gas powered vehicles in value for money.
There are obvious large infrastructure challenges for EVs but they do not seem insurmountable given the coming cost advantages (compare the shift from horses to cars btw 1910 and 1930)