Are Electric Vehicles The Saving Grace

By Roger Anghis

July 24, 2022

The short answer is no. Not by a long shot. In a previous article, I covered the good and the bad of electric cars. The good thing is they don’t use gas. That’s where it stops. Liberals want electric cars because the internal combustion cars produce all this CO₂that’s baking the planet. Not true. In my article Is alternative Energy that Effective I have a footnote that states: “The effect of CO2 on global temperature, if it exists, is so small that no one has been able to demonstrate or measure it. The touted effect exists solely in computer models whose forecasts to date have all failed. Therefore, there is ZERO proven benefit for mankind in trying to capture harmless CO2 in order to bury it in carbon cemeteries. Worse, it is removing valuable plant food from the biosphere – a step towards global food suicide. Moreover, for every tonne of carbon buried, we bury 2.7 tonnes of the gas of life – oxygen. “The quantities of gas to be handled just from power stations are enormous. For every tonne of coal burnt, about 11 tonnes of gases are exhausted – 7.5 tonnes of nitrogen, 2.5 tonnes of CO2 and one tonne of water vapour. These are all harmless and valuable natural recycled atmospheric gases. Life on earth would be impossible without them.[1] Now don’t act too shocked but that page has been blocked.

People don’t think about some of the things concerning the manufacturing of electric vehicles and MSM is not about to tell you either. All of the raw materials have to be mined. The iron for all the metal in the car, which is mined with diesel-powered vehicles, it is the same with the lithium for the batteries, which includes child labor because we don’t have any lithium. China owns most of it. They want to stop using oil but what will they use to make the plastic interior, the vinyl seats, the composite steering wheel, and the synthetic rubber for the tires. These people remind me of those that say they don’t need oil because they use public transportation.

Then consider how the electricity is generated to charge the car. What is used for that? Coal and natural gas. Both are fossil fuels. Liberals have grand schemes but don’t know how to think them through. I have not been a fan of the EPA for many, many years once they approved of spraying Agent Orange, i.e. Roundup, all over our crops and even bio-engineering it into our food. Viet Nam era folks will remember that health disaster. But even like a broken clock is right twice a day they occasionally get something right. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, particulate emissions are “microscopic solids or liquid droplets that are so small that they can be inhaled and cause serious health problems.” It notes the particles “are also the main cause of reduced visibility (haze) in parts of the United States, including many of our treasured national parks and wilderness areas.”

The EPA defines particle pollution as “inhalable particles,” which are under 10 microns in diameter, and “fine inhalable particles,” 2.5 microns and smaller.

The firm that conducted the study, Emissions Analytics, had previously found in 2020 that particulate emissions from tires could be 1,000 times greater than those from tailpipes. That test was designed to capture worst-case emissions under legal driving, according to the report. But when researchers replicated the test “across a wider range of driving conditions,” they found the number was even higher.[2]

For decades we’ve been trying to make cars lighter but according to a recent study the battery-powered Ford F-150 Lightning weighs 1,600 pounds more than a regular F-150 truck. The Volvo XC40 Recharge packs an extra 1,000 pounds of weight when compared to a Volvo XC40 with an internal-combustion engine.[3] The thought that EVs are less problematic are incorrect. According to J.D. Power, owners of electric or hybrid vehicles cite more problems than do owners of gas-powered vehicles. The latter vehicles average 175 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), hybrids average 239 PP100, and battery-powered cars — excluding Tesla models — average 240 PP100. Tesla models average 226 PP100. Given the average cost of an electric car is roughly $60,000, about $20,000 more than the cost of a gas-powered car, it seems owners of EVs didn’t get the value they deserve.[4]

The tires are another problem with EVs. Because the car weighs 1000-1500 pounds more than an internal combustion car the tires wear much faster. And those tires are not cheap either. $300-375 a piece.[5] And we saved the big one for the last . . . Then there is the biggest maintenance cost of all – the battery pack. Which will cost you more, because it’s so huge – in order to move the EV at highway speeds for any significant distance. This, in turn, results in it being so heavy – which increases the amount of power needed to move it plus the car it’s installed in, reducing efficiency.

You do get the power – and the acceleration – but it costs you. Especially if you use either as doing so discharges the battery, rapidly – which means needing to recharge it more regularly. The “faster” you do that, the greater the load/stress imposed upon the battery, costing you battery life. And when the time comes to replace the battery, that’ll cost you more than it costs to replace a non-electric car’s transmission or engine – and maybe both, together.[6]

Plus the oil and filter changes.

Will there come a day when EVs will be worth it. Not in my book. We aren’t destroying the planet like they say we are. Plus they aren’t even close to having a back up plan. With wind and solor being less than 20% of our energy and over 80% is fossil fuels and no plans for miniture nuke plants for powering cars, trucks, and airplanes I think fossil fuels are here for a long time.

E-Mail Roger Anghis: roger@buildingthetruth.org

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