Are You Clamoring for an Electric Car?

 

(With my apologies to Gary McVey, prepare for one of my incendiary posts.)

Is a Tesla or a Chevy Bolt, or a Nissan Leaf on your Christmas list this year? Can you hardly wait to ditch that gas-guzzler in the driveway and replace it with a vehicle that you can “fill up” from an installation in your garage, at a lot less than a tank of Regular?

Well, if that’s what you see in your future, so do most of the world’s car manufacturers. There probably isn’t a car manufacturer who isn’t working on designing and building an electric car, either purpose-designed or just replacing the internal-combustion engine in a model they already build with a big battery. General Motors has already announced their coming “All-electric future.” The European Union is mandating more and more strict emissions rules for vehicles sold there, and their carmakers like BMW, Renault, Daimler, Fiat, and Volvo are all touting their electric vehicles.

But you might wish to wait a moment before you go all-in on electric, especially if you live in the United States outside of a central large city. First, let’s check out the price of that electric car versus its gas-powered brother. The Nissan Leaf retails for about $30,000. Its near twin, the Nissan Versa, costs about $19,000. An electric Chevy Bolt will set you back about $36,000. Its similar brother, the Cruze, is about $17,000. See a pattern developing here? In the past, you could rely on a nice Federal tax credit for your electric car, to help mitigate that huge price differential, but not anymore. Most carmakers have sold enough cars that they don’t earn any tax credit now. So, it looks like GM’s All-Electric Future will be a lot more expensive than its Internal Combustion Present.

That nice home charger in the garage will set you back another $700 or so. However, unlike the five-minute fill-up of your gas-powered ride, it will take you up to 3-4 hours to recharge that electric car. And the “range” of an electric car is a lot smaller than the range of miles you can get from a tank of gas. So, you’ll probably want to forget those long road-trips in your new electric car. And if you get caught in an unexpected traffic jam, that electric car’s range might just shrink. If you get caught with your battery down in the middle of a busy street or freeway, it might be pretty embarrassing to have AAA send a truck to hoist it up and carry it to the nearest charging station. And there’s no guarantee that there will even be a nearby charging station! They are still pretty few around the country today.

Also, what about that wildfire in your area, when the police or highway patrol comes to your house and tells you to evacuate? What? Your electric car is out of charge? It won’t get you very far when you need to evacuate? Too bad, it becomes a hunk of junk when the fire reaches your house, and you really can’t carry much on your back. Then, what about that power failure in the next thunderstorm? Your car needs a charge? Impossible with no power! That’s especially worrying when you are a rural resident, where you are already far from most services.

Now, I’ll bet that new electric car might not seem like such a good investment. And electric cars are so new, there’s really not much of a market for used ones. And big Li-ion batteries don’t last forever, and eventually need to be replaced, at a cost far above that of an internal-combustion engine. So your electric car might not be worth very much when its battery wears out, and you might be out one-third the price of the car for a new one. Oh, and batteries don’t perform very well in the cold, so if you live in a northern state like Minnesota, your car will need to be kept indoors so its battery doesn’t freeze or get drained by the cold weather. And beware of the company parking lot while you’re at work — your car might not run when you come out to go home at the end of the day.

My own viewpoint is that I will never, ever, buy or drive an electric car. I appreciate being able to get in my gas-powered car, and go wherever I want, whenever I want, with no “range anxiety.” I like long car trips, without the worry of how long I have left before my car dies. Gas stations are everywhere, and if you keep a full or close to full tank, you can even drive around during a power outage. And when you are forced to evacuate, you can fill up the trunk with your goods and just drive away. I’m betting that most Americans aren’t clamoring for an electric car, and that GM’s future might not be so prosperous if it expects most Americans to want one.

An electric car will not be in my future.

Published in Economics
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  1. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Jon1979 (View Comment):

    I would suspect the more nanny-statish areas will start to mandate just how many EV charging ports and how many gas pumps outlets can have, with the idea of clamping down on the pumps to the point of negating any advantage ICE vehicle drivers have in refueling and getting back on the road — i.e., it might only take you five minutes to fill up your tank versus 20-25 minutes to fully recharge your battery. But the Blue state areas are going to limit the gas pumps so much, you’re going to have to wait a hour in line behind other ICE drivers to get to the pump.

    That’s the type of forced coercion that people just using their EVs in urban areas for commuting might rationalize as simply necessary to Save the Planet, but the unintended consequence is probably going to be to slow down productivity for those who will need the added scalable power available that gas/diesel powered engines can provide, but can’t get to their work sites quickly because they’re stuck in some artificially-created gas line reminiscent of the 1970s.

    The irony is that as more people switch over to electric vehicles, the demand for gasoline will go down, which means the price will also go down, increasing the economic case for gasoline vehicles (not that gas is exactly expensive at the moment).  But it’s not like electricity is getting cheaper.

    • #31
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):
    The irony is that as more people switch over to electric vehicles, the demand for gasoline will go down, which means the price will also go down, increasing then economic case for gasoline vehicles (not that gas is exactly expensive at the moment). But it’s not like electricity is getting cheaper.

    Taxes will also be a factor. How much is one taxed per gallon of gasoline “for the roads”? How much per kilowatt-hour of electricity? Coming soon: tax on electricity for the roads.

    • #32
  3. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I think hybrid is a better compromise than full electric.  (Full disclosure: I drive a 2018 Camry hybrid.)

    The hybrid eliminates the need for a huge battery, something needed to give a full electric car a decent range.  With the hybrid, the battery charges not only from the motor (and not all the time from the motor), but from coasting and braking as well.  When accelerating, the stored energy in the battery assists the gasoline motor via electric motors.  My car will only go a couple of miles solely on the battery, so it really is a motor assist, not a get-you-home battery.

    If you only drive a short distance everyday, and can fully charge the thing overnight, then all-electric makes sense.  If you do a lot of driving in town and long range travel, a hydrid makes more sense.

    However, there is one thing everyone should know:

    Whether you buy an all-electric vehicle or a hybrid, you’re not saving the planet . . .

    • #33
  4. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    I appreciate being able to get in my gas-powered car, and go wherever I want, whenever I want, with no “range anxiety”. I like long car trips, without the worry of how long I have left before my car dies.

    See the source image

    • #34
  5. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Not to mention how dangerous lithium-ion batteries are when they’re compromised:

    Also, the disposal of spent Li-ion batteries is hazardous materials work.

    There’s no such thing as a free lunch, in case we need reminding.

    • #35
  6. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    I appreciate being able to get in my gas-powered car, and go wherever I want, whenever I want, with no “range anxiety”. I like long car trips, without the worry of how long I have left before my car dies.

    See the source image

    • #36
  7. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    There’s no such thing as a free lunch, in case we need reminding.

    So true.  Whether it’s building or disposing of the batteries, there’s always waste.  The left looks at all-electric cars and sees no tailpipe emissions.  What they don’t see are the coal-fired power plants producing the juice to charge the cars (Ramirez did a great cartoon on this: an electric car towing an electric power plant).

    However, do leftists – particularly the youngsters – realize all their Dem candidates are going to shut down all coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants?  Banning fracking will make gasoline scare and expensive.  Haven’t they seen all those pictures of Chinese citizens riding bicycles?

    • #37
  8. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    An electric car? You can’t do anything decent with them without 1.21 gigawatts of power…

    • #38
  9. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    I’ll be the first to admit that one strike against electric cars are the airheaded, pseudo-visionary claims that technically illiterate leftists make for them. I could do a post called “Years of outright lying about speed and range”. But then I could do the same for the boastful claims of factory-built housing in 1949, nuclear generating plants in 1954, or personal computers in 1979. Each one of us has to determine for ourselves where the line is crossed between enthusiasts and BS artists.

    Nuclear generating plants actually could generate power that’s too cheap to meter.  I am not kidding.  Because nuclear power is very insensitive to fuel prices, nuclear plants run at full capacity as much as possible.  You could charge people for the maximum demand / capacity they would need, and not actually charge per kWh used.

    Sorry, I’m like the @richardeaston of nuclear power -always been very interested in my Dad’s line of work.

    Yes, that means my real ideal car is a Ford Nucleon.  Hey, if they fit a reactor in NR-1 (which is  only 12ft wide)  then perhaps a future reactor could power a civilian vehicle.  I could see Elon Musk or Peter Thiel having a nuclear yacht.

    • #39
  10. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Don’t forget the trials of PG&E in California. With the increase in EVs on the road adding to the stress on the grid, would they expend more effort on upkeep? Today they are bankrupt due to the State mandates for inefficient so-called renewable energy. It will not be any less expensive for them to maintain the grid when power demand skyrockets due to the addition of millions of electric vehicles on the roads.  With fewer reliable sources of power generation available to them, what happens when the thinner grid is overstressed?

    • #40
  11. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Electric car being charged by a diesel van he had to call for roadside assistance. Don’t tell Greta.

    • #41
  12. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    Electric car being charged by a diesel van he had to call for roadside assistance. Don’t tell Greta.

    • #42
  13. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Don’t forget the trials of PG&E in California. With the increase in EVs on the road adding to the stress on the grid, would they expend more effort on upkeep? Today they are bankrupt due to the State mandates for inefficient so-called renewable energy. It will not be any less expensive for them to maintain the grid when power demand skyrockets due to the addition of millions of electric vehicles on the roads. With fewer reliable sources of power generation available to them, what happens when the thinner grid is overstressed?

    SoCal Edison works under exactly the same state regulations that PG&E does, and they’re doing fine. PG&E is a very badly managed company and in capitalism, they get punished and Edison gets rewarded with business. 

    PG&E does a crappy job. It has nothing to do with electric cars. Sometimes oil pipelines leak. Does that mean we should give up petroleum? 

    • #43
  14. TheRightNurse Member
    TheRightNurse
    @TheRightNurse

    My HOA is talking about changing things up and writing new things into the CC&Rs/Bylaws because of this crap.  People have taken to charging their electric cars from the garage.  That’s all fine and well, except that the HOA pays for the garage electric.  It’s not so well when they’re predicting that we’ll go 80% electric soon.

    I have to tell the HOA that I think they’ve been enjoying too much of the recreational cannabis.

    When I look at the parking lot at my HOA, I think I’ve seen one electric vehicle.  Maybe the HOA board members are planning a major electric purchase.  For the rest of us getting by, it’s not in the cards.

    Maybe the HOA should spend more time looking at our aging pipelines and electric lines, rather than jumping forward into the All Electric Future.

    • #44
  15. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Electric cars are as heavy as gasoline cars, and use the roads as much as all the gasoline cars.  They pay zero road-maintenance gas taxes.  Free-riders?  How best to tax electric car-owners for their share of road-maintenance costs?  Just add a “weight fee” like truckers pay.

    • #45
  16. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Electric cars are as heavy as gasoline cars, and use the roads as much as all the gasoline cars. They pay zero road-maintenance gas taxes. Free-riders? How best to tax electric car-owners for their share of road-maintenance costs? Just add a “weight fee” like truckers pay.

    Will that be in addition to fuel taxes?

    • #46
  17. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Don’t forget the trials of PG&E in California. With the increase in EVs on the road adding to the stress on the grid, would they expend more effort on upkeep? Today they are bankrupt due to the State mandates for inefficient so-called renewable energy. It will not be any less expensive for them to maintain the grid when power demand skyrockets due to the addition of millions of electric vehicles on the roads. With fewer reliable sources of power generation available to them, what happens when the thinner grid is overstressed?

    SoCal Edison works under exactly the same state regulations that PG&E does, and they’re doing fine. PG&E is a very badly managed company and in capitalism, they get punished and Edison gets rewarded with business.

    PG&E does a crappy job. It has nothing to do with electric cars. Sometimes oil pipelines leak. Does that mean we should give up petroleum?

    PG&E does have to do with electricity, however, and they are at the hairy edge of their capacity. Increasing demand without increasing supply will do that.

    • #47
  18. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Franco (View Comment):

    There are certainly drawbacks and you’ve listed most of them. But most, if not all of those problems will be solved quite soon.

    Im a huge Elon Musk fan and if I had extra money I’d put it in Tesla in a heartbeat. I couldn’t are less about saving the planet ( can’t wait for it to end, lol) but EV’s are far superior in every way to legacy ICE vehicles. The prices are coming down, ranges are going up, charging is becoming more rapid and stations more plentiful.
    In 15 years there will be nothing but EV’s on the road. Even at today’s prices, electric cars are cheaper if you price through 5 years including fuel and maintenance. Tesla’s last a half-million miles including battery life. They project one million for both in the next few years. Fully automated driving is closer than we think (Tesla especially) and will revolutionize the entire economy.

    Prepare for a big shake-up. Once you ignore the enviro-sanctimony associated with EV’s, you can see more clearly they are superior and will be the future. This is why every car-maker is jumping in. They will be left in the dust if they don’t. Their problem is that Tesla has such a huge lead on them many will ultimately fail.

    Prove that.

    Batteries are in no way about to be better stores of power than gas.

    Fully autonomous driving? Please. I’ll believe that when I see it. Right now, the damn things can only break, not maneuver. And you can’t use them when you need them the most, when conditions are bad.

    AI, in general, sucks. I hear how we are all going to be replaced, but I don’t buy it when my phone cannot understand me, and when I apply for a job, the stupid software can’t parse LinkedIn right.

    • #48
  19. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Also, the grid cannot support it.

     

    • #49
  20. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    I despise electric cars. I pray then whole experiment with them fails. It is plot to make cars cost more, just like light bulbs, and all of our appliances. 

    • #50
  21. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    My Prius hybrid is 16 years old and my wife and I have driven it 206,000 miles, with virtually no problems.  It’s still on its original brake linings and my tires go about 60,000 miles.

    It’s still on its original “big” battery. (I’ve had the normal batteries replaced.)

    I still get 45 miles per gallon.

    It’s the best car my wife and have ever owned.   We’re going to drive it until it gives up the ghost.

    • #51
  22. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    Note that if all your electricity is generated from solar…and you charge your car at night…then the electricity you use to charge your car must be stored between the time it is generated and the time is is applied to the charging…which almost certainly means another battery or battery array.

    • #52
  23. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    I’ve been fairly negative on pure-electric cars beyond a fairly small niche market.  Here’s an investment fund manager who bought a Tesla by way of market research, and has written a thoughtful paper.  You can get it emailed to you here:

    https://contrarianedge.com/signup-for-tesla-article/

    The consequences of auto-industry sea changes are potentially so significant for the economy and for society that we would all do well to consider multiple points of view. 

     

    • #53
  24. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    E. Kent Golding (View Comment):

    China and the EU are taxing and regulating electric cars into existence. China is the single most lucrative auto market in the world. Regulations in general may possibly make cars better, but they certainly make them more expensive. Not everyone can afford the cars that our governments restrict the automakers to providing.

    Hence the money for buses which the government wants the Worker to use. The elite get cars. 

    • #54
  25. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    RPD (View Comment):

    I don’t mind EVs but I hate government mandates forcing them on us. Other than Tesla they don’t sell well without subsidies and with Zero Emission laws such California has passes I suspect most automakers would skip them. They’re compliance vehicles.

    On a recent roadtrip I noticed that service plazas on the Ohio toll road have EV chargers (with credit card sliders) in the back lots. That seems no worse than the gas and diesel pumps that are there as well. On the other hand Indiana has no chargers, but the do have front and center parking for EV/Hybrid which strikes me as pretty silly.

    Governments putting their thumb on the scales in favor of one technology over another just seems wrong.

    I agree, but otoh government interfering in gas prices for infrastructure or to make exploration less of a gamble doesn’t bother me so very much (taxes in both cases). But that was before there was a competing technology. 

    “We’ve established what you are, now we’re just haggling over the price,” comes to mind. 

    • #55
  26. Matt Bartle Member
    Matt Bartle
    @MattBartle

    I’m still wondering what happened to fuel cell cars. That was the Next Big Thing once upon a a time.

    • #56
  27. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    If you have a pure-electric car and you need to charge it when not at home or at work…charging will probably take at least an hour or so, depending on the charger, the car, and your battery’s state of charge.  So you’ll need to have something else to do during that time interval; very different from the present gas station gas-and-go model.

    • #57
  28. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Matt Bartle (View Comment):

    I’m still wondering what happened to fuel cell cars. That was the Next Big Thing once upon a a time.

    Fuel cells degrade with use. I read once that 75,000 miles will cost you 10% efficiency. Plus you need hydrogen. It’s everywhere, but it has to be separated from whatever else it is combined with. That takes … wait for it … energy.

    Large volumes of hydrogen have other characteristics.

    TANSTAAFL.

    • #58
  29. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Matt Bartle (View Comment):

    I’m still wondering what happened to fuel cell cars. That was the Next Big Thing once upon a a time.

    They, not battery electrics, were the environmentalist’s favorite solution of the Nineties, and the greens were surprised that George W. Bush’s administration agreed with them, shifting DOE research money away from batteries. General Motors poured money into fuel cells, and even the oil/gas energy industry liked them, if grudgingly, because they had a decent chance of being leading players in a new technology that involved physical fuel, tanks, gas stations and ultimately, pipelines. Hydrogen fuel cells, a spinoff of the space program, was the Republican answer to reducing dependence on foreign oil, as batteries were once the Democrats’, since electronic solutions pleased the Dems’ friends in Silicon Valley.  In the meantime, Honda’s battery-only Accord and Toyota’s Prius hybrid were the Japanese answers.

    But history went free market. I’m no Elon worshipper, but give him credit for capitalist guts; he took over an existing battery electric project and made a crucial marketing decision: if circa 2005 the only batteries that were powerful enough to build a practical car were very expensive, then he’d be the Steve Jobs of electric cars, selling only high priced, high performance products to an elite. The first Tesla, a roadster, sold itself to diehard car fanatics, not just electric car fanatics. The success of the roadster led to a widening stream of variations and models, gradually including upper middle class buyers who might otherwise have bought a Lexus or a Mercedes. He used what were in essence laptop batteries, finally achieving the self-sustaining market success that General Motors’ prematurely marketed EV1 couldn’t, ten to fifteen years earlier.

    There’s one hydrogen car on the market, Toyota’s Mirai. It suffers from a new technology’s usual chicken-and-egg problem, not enough cars to sustain fuel stations, too few stations to justify buying the car. The “hydrogen economy” could still arrive someday, but it sure doesn’t look like soon.

    • #59
  30. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    I despise electric cars. I pray then whole experiment with them fails. It is plot to make cars cost more, just like light bulbs, and all of our appliances.

    Bryan, this is not a sane position. 
    People here are really triggered by the enviro-sanctimony surrounding electric cars. I also find it off-putting. But objectively it’s better technology across-the-board. That’s outside of environmental concerns. Ultimately it will be somewhat better but that is not even relevant to my position. 

    I’m really surprised at the ignorance displayed by so many comments here. 
    I drive a 2001 Chevy Suburban mostly and couldn’t care less how much I ‘pollute’. But EV’s are the future regardless of government meddling and absurd environmental fearmongering. It’s not government regulations or incentives that are driving this change-over, it’s mostly the vision and amazing genius of Elon Musk and Tesla, who managed to revolutionize the entire industry with better technology based on a superior system. Once the battery capacity provided enough range, and enough infrastructure was added, other car companies had to jump-in or be left behind. It’s as stark a contrast as horse-drawn carriages and model T’s, and the debate is parallel. All the drawbacks are easily surmounted and are being eliminated before our eyes, and the ICE system will be left in the dust in as little as one decade, because the system is superior. That is, cheaper, faster, more powerful, more comfortable and less problematic. 

    Do some research. It’s easily found. I’ll even send you links if you agree to look at them.

    • #60
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