I only got about 3 minutes in before the stupid burned too much. It starts with the claim that “batteries leak”. Christ. Battery leakage is a complete non-issue for EVs; they can sit for months with a charge, and to the extent they are using power, it’s largely the onboard systems using it, not the battery.
They move on to claims that gas has 5000% more energy per pound and that a battery weighs 1000 lbs compared to 80 lbs for a tank of gas. This isn’t even an argument; it’s just a non sequitur. The weight of the battery is irrelevant; all that matters is if the total system is practical. Modern EVs can go 300+ miles on a charge, which is very practical.
There’s then talk about how replacing the gas storage in Europe with batteries would cost $100 trillion dollars and take 400 years to manufacture. Again, a non sequitur. What does this have to do with EVs? I’m not going to even bother disputing the basic claims, which are probably wrong anyway.
The grid will collapse! No, it won’t, for all the reasons cited above. Mainly: EVs charge at night.
Finally, they move on to outright lying. First, a claim that California told EV owners not to use their car. No they didn’t; they told people to avoid charging during peak periods, which is already advisable and a mild inconvenience for most. The people that planned poorly and are stuck needing to charge at peak times are not enough to cause problems.
I made many of those trips in -20C to -30C weather. Calgary has average winter temps that are higher because they get chinooks. Also, you need winter tires because those low rolling resistance tires will be hard as rock in -20 weather.
I’d be curious to see what your app says if it’s -30 and you put winter tires on your Tesla.
Here’s a story about a Winnipeg rsident and his experience in really cold weather:
Tl;dr:
Winnipeg reaches an average low of -19.2°C (-2.6°F) each winter, with around 12 days of temps at or below -30°C (-22°F).
Living in a city just as cold, this is pretty unacceptable. Last year we spent the entire month of January below -20C, and plenty of other really cold days during the winter. You still need to travel.
Oh, and during that entire month, our wind and solar operated at less than 10% capacity, and sometimes as low as 2%. As we switch out more fossil fuels for wind and solar, being able to charge electric cars in deep winter will get very problematic - especially if we have to charge them at 3X the rate we would in summer.
My estimate of 321 Wh/mile is with winter tires. I’ve only recorded 3 miles of driving at -5F (-20ish C), so I don’t have good estimates for that low of temperature. Yes, if you’re going to be driving at night, than using the average low temperature is reasonable. Even in Edmonton the average winter high is in the 20-25F range, and the average temperature is 15F, which only brings my energy use up to 327 Wh/mile.
It’s also important to remember exactly what is causing the range loss at low temperatures:
Winter tires - this will be the same for any temperature
Thicker air
Less power available from the battery - as the battery warms up, the “lost” power becomes available again
Keeping the cabin warm - heat pumps have helped greatly with this, so can pre-warming the car while connected to a charger, less energy is used once the car is warm
Long trips are much easier on the battery in the cold than lots of short trips, where the car has to be reheated from frozen each time. Even then, a bunch of short trips are just that, short. Charge overnight, and don’t worry about it.
Let’s avoid the hyperbole. Looking at December 2021 and January 2022 there is a two week period over New Years that looks pretty brutal, but the rest of the time seems fine.
And, it is only when one finds how unreliable what Stossel says, than then one should consider how bad the source is, suffice to say, the truth has not been hard to dispose by him if it is in the way of his opportunistic ideology.
Privately, however, Stossel sang a different tune. “I got a little older,” he told a colleague at ABC, “and liked the idea of making real money. So I started looking at things a little differently.” In a speech he delivered to the Federalist Society in ’96, Stossel said: “I got sick of [consumer advocacy]. I also now make so much money I just lost interest in saving a buck on a can of peas.”
“Selling out” is a reductive description of Stossel’s evolution. His leanings were not just watered down by right-wing influence; they were radicalized by it. This was, after all, an Emmy-winning leftist journalist rubbing shoulders with far-right heavy-hitters in a matter of less than a decade. However, Stossel’s defection has far more historical value than meets the eye. His story was an early warning which presaged a 21st-century trend amongst the right of financial opportunism at the expense of intellectual earnestness. In other words, Stossel was and still is the first right-wing grifter.
I actually did check, Stossel tells half-truths, as when declaring that the California governor asked EV users to not use them, that omitted a lot of context. Even Cervantes noted in Don Quixote centuries ago, that telling half a lie is a lie, because the intention is to mislead others in the end.
An example: his interviewed nuclear guy that does not find a problem with fossil fuels, makes this statement in the video: “This is one of these areas that we have really precise knowledge. If you cover the entire continent of the United States with solar panels, you wouldn’t supply half of America’s electricity. This is just math, and physics.”
Well, besides the US not being a continent, you should know that that fellow from the Manhattan Institute is no solar expert:
Solar’s abundance and potential throughout the United States is staggering: PV panels on just 22,000 square miles of the nation’s total land area – about the size of Lake Michigan – could supply enough electricity to power the entire United States. Solar panels can also be installed on rooftops with essentially no land use impacts, and it is projected that more than one in seven U.S. homes will have a rooftop solar PV system by 2030.
They put in charging stations in my apartment complex. In the week or so they’ve been there, I haven’t seen anyone using them, although the complex hasn’t made an announcement yet, so I don’t know how much they will cost or if they will always be in use once they’ve been officially rolled out. 4 stations for a couple hundred apartments is not a lot.
What’s strange is that I still don’t see chargers anywhere else I am typically at during the week. I would have expected them in Target or grocery stores, but even a map of them only shows them near the interstate, which is over 4 miles away.
Most of my trips are in PHEV range, although most of my miles are on the highway. And at least twice a month, I take a trip that carries me out of PHEV range, so the gas engine would still get a workout. So if the chargers become cheap and plentiful in my apartment, and there are decently-priced chargers elsewhere in my daily life, I will consider a PHEV for my next vehicle. Since I have already seen a lot of chargers at hotels and large convenience stores that are next to the highway, I would only get slightly worse mileage on the highway than a HEV since I would be able to start the day on electric and hopefully recharge a bit during the day. It’s just that it wouldn’t be as critical as if I went with a PEV.
Central Florida. I’ve seen them at Disney World only around here amongst places I normally go to, (but not every week), and they are fairly limited in number as well.
EVs are running into difficulties. Winter reviews are not kind, especially for the EV trucks. And GM and LG’s battery plant partnership failed, leaving GM short of batteries. Prices have risen dramatically (except for Tesla), and the early adopters already have EVs.
The next few years will be an interesting test of EV acceptance. GM starting design of a new small-block V8 that probably won’t even hit the market for five years is an interesting contrast to the claims that we’ll be EV-only by 2035.
When I drove a PHEV, I was always looking for chargers. Not because I “needed” them, but I just wanted to minimize petrol use as much as possible. If I stopped for 10 minutes at a Walgrens, I’d plug in. Now, with full EV, I don’t bother. I’m never going 200 miles unless I’m on a trip somewhere. So, I only need level 3, near a highway, and only once or twice a year.
I see some in the area, but I missed that you said they were some 4 miles away. 4 Miles isn’t that far for such a new technology. It’s going to be years, probably decades, before they’re as common as gas stations. Of course, by then, more people will have them at home/work and have less need for them in the wild.
Also, I still think the best places for them, at least the ‘side of the interstate’ ones is at fast food places. If I’m on the road and need to charge up, I’d much rather sit in a McDonalds parking lot eating for a half hour rather than wandering around Target (which is on the opposite end of the parking lot) or stare at the side of a gas station because they mounted one there.
While I’m here, I’m making a prediction that within 10 years or so, most new homes will have 240 in their garage and within 20-30 years, 240v 50amp service in the garage will be code in many jurisdictions. As these cars get more popular, more people are going to try to run the electrical themselves or run an extension cord from their electric dryer outlet in their basement out to the car and cause fires. I expect the various AHJs to want to minimize that by essentially requiring these to be professionally wired before the homeowner does it themselves.
The most I would buy right now would be a hybrid. I live in a high-rise condominium that was built in the ‘70’s. So until the condo installs chargers for each resident, I can’t buy an exclusive EV.
