"I continue to be amazed that serious people think that gasoline powered vehicles can be completely replaced by electric vehicles in a decade-and-a-half, and that this would be a good thing, even if possible.
... Tesla Motors is now the world’s most valuable auto manufacture, based on the value of its capital stock issued and in the public’s hands.
Mary T. Barra, CEO of General Motors, has pledged to sell only zero emission vehicles by 2035.
That would meet the deadline imposed by California Governor Gavin Newsom ...
Charging electric cars at work makes sense, as it requires several hours.
But what if you want to drive on a long trip?
... Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota Motors ... had some harsh words for electric vehicles at the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association end-of-year press conference ...
... "The current business model of the car industry is going to collapse," he said. "
"The more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets … When politicians are out there saying, 'Let's get rid of all cars using gasoline,' do they understand this?"
Studies detailing the carbon emissions necessary to manufacture an electric vehicle reveal that on a net basis, there are more emissions for vehicle bought and used for its expected lifetime, than would be generated by buying and using a conventional gasoline-powered vehicle.
... Where will all the electricity needed to power to entire fleet of cars in the US (or Japan) come from?
Despite the fantasies of greenies, it won’t be from windmills or solar farms.
They are too unreliable, take up too much land, and cost too much.
Right now, it is coal and natural gas that produce the most electricity at the most reasonable cost.
And they emit CO2.
... The very large batteries needed for electric cars use lots of expensive lithium (and some other rare elements) whose supply is limited, and whose mining requires lots of scarce water.
In fact, powering the world’s vehicles by battery is simply impossible, given the limited world supply of lithium ...
Powerline’s Steve Hayward says: "For the longest while I have been asking, “Where do environmentalists and Democrats think all these batteries for our oil-free transportation fleet are going to come from?”
“One of the biggest environmental problems caused by our endless hunger for the latest and smartest devices is a growing mineral crisis, particularly those needed to make our batteries,” says Christina Valimaki an analyst at Elsevier...
It’s a relatively cheap and effective process, but it uses a lot of water – approximately 500,000 gallons per tonne of lithium.
In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, mining activities consumed 65 per cent of the region’s water.
That is having a big impact on local farmers – who grow quinoa and herd llamas – in an area where some communities already have to get water driven in from elsewhere.
... Two other key ingredients, cobalt and nickel, are more in danger of creating a bottleneck in the move towards electric vehicles, and at a potentially huge environmental cost.
Cobalt is found in huge quantities right across the Democratic Republic of Congo and central Africa, and hardly anywhere else.
The price has quadrupled in the last two years.
I am glad that some grownups are pointing out that the electric vehicle conversion emperor has no clothes on.
But that hasn’t stopped governments, manufacturers, and investors from pretending that electric vehicles are our only future."