Electric Car Putsch

Guest Post by Eric Peters

It’s not just the government that’s pushing electric cars. The media is equally complicit. Both are engaged in what has to be described as nothing less than a concerted propaganda onslaught to convince the public that the naked emperor is indeed wearing a suit of the finest materials available.

But the question – why? – remains mysterious.

What is so important – to them – about electric cars? Why the urgency to create the impression of inevitability?

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The media, in particular, seems to be obsessed with this – even to the point of exaggerating the confected enthusiasm for electric cars displayed by major car manufacturers, who must at least pretend that electric cars are The Future – in order to not offend politically correct orthodoxy.

For example, this CNN “news” story. The headline reads, GM: The Future is All-Electric.

The lead eructs:

“That’s what the automaker said Monday as it unveiled plans to roll out two new electric vehicles over the next 18 months and a total of 20 over the next six years.”

Except GM – in the person of CEO Mary Barra – said no such thing.

She talked about – sigh – the need to “increase diversity” among engineers. This being a politically correct dogma right up there with the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic liturgy. Such talk at a car industry press conference is becoming as predictable as Pravda during the Brezhnev years.

GM’s head of product development – Mark Reuss – did say that “GM believes in an all-electric future.” But that is not the same thing as “The Future is All-Electric.”

Belief – vs. is.

The distinction is important.

Of course GM “believes.” Just as most kids under the age of ten believe in the Tooth Fairy. But is the Tooth Fairy real?

Belief – vs. is.

GM says what it must. But it is what sells that will determine whether belief in the “all electric future” becomes actuality. And – so far – electric cars don’t.

Sell.

Not without monster “incentives” that dramatically lower the purchase price. The Chevy Bolt, for instance. GM’s latest electric car – on which many hopes were pinned – stalled like a ’78 Pinto after it was introduced at the beginning of this year. Its $37,500 base price being the obvious reason for buyer reluctance. The Bolt is basically a compact economy car – except for its electric drivetrain, the same sort of car as a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla.

Except it costs twice as much as they do.

Plus change.

And only goes half as far – and takes at least six times as long to “refuel.”

Unlike the government, which can lavish money on anything it likes – having limitless access to taxpayers’ pockets – car buyers have to think about money, above everything else.

It is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Press conference cheerleading aside, a car like the Bolt makes no economic sense. It costs about as much as a Lexus ES350. But it is not a Lexus ES350. It is an electrically-powered economy car . . . that isn’t very economical. Because it costs more rather than less to buy than a non-electric equivalent –  so the fact that  it costs less to drive is economically irrelevant.

This is one of those stubborn facts old John Adams used to talk about but which politically correct orthodoxies prevent being discussed today.

Mary Barra – whose origins as a human resources golem are not encouraging – may know this. Mark Reuss definitely knows. Neither are imbeciles but both know they must not touch the third rail and publicly speak ill – that is, factually – about electric cars. No matter how poorly they sell; no matter the desperation tactics that must be deployed to simply move them off dealership lots.

Which is what GM had to resort to in order to – stimulate is the word that comes to mind – artificial demand for the Bolt.

In addition to the disgusting federal and state subsidies (i.e., transfer of taxpayer dollars) to the buyer – which weren’t enough to sway enough buyers – GM dealers began throwing in a $5,000 additional discount (see here) which along with the federal and state subsidies brought the Bolt’s ludicrous $37,500 sticker price down to a merely silly $25,000 – only about $10k more than a decent IC-engined economy car.

This was enough to stimulate “sales” from around 900 a month to about 1,900 a month (as of September; see here for the actual numbers).

This is good – and very bad.

Another important distinction.

GM can crow about the Bolt’s sales increasing. Which is true. But only because GM is giving away the Bolt. Imagine a restaurant that only charged $5 a plate for a full course prime rib dinner. Plus “free” drinks.

The restaurant would be very busy.

Until it ran out of prime rib and Scotch and sodas to give away.

It is baying naked at the Moon, on all fours, wearing a meat helmet – economically speaking. Barra and Reuss know this, too. They are probably embarrassed and – between themselves – shake their heads and wonder how much longer this can go on.

All the way, I suspect.

The economic facts are simply too bulgy to be swept under the rug. The lumps show. This is why, incidentally, the sudden stampede to pass laws banning other-than-electric cars. If people no longer have a choice, then they have to choose an EV!

Now, they’ll sell!

This is a measure of both the desperation of the EV putchsers and the seriousness of their intent. They are determined.

The same applies to the media whores who are un-indicted co-conspirators in this mess. Who purvey this EV inevitability BS.

Who never ask:

Where, exactly, will the billions come from to erect the nationwide fast-charging infrastructure that is absolutely essential for EVs to ever be more than subsidized curiosities?

Without these “fast” chargers, using an ordinary household outlet, an EV needs 8-12 hours to regain its ability to move.

Erecting a network of fast chargers is a project on the order of building the Interstate Highway System – but we are told that there is barely enough money to maintain the highways which already exist.

So where will the got-damned money come from? Who will pay? 

Why is the cost of battery replacement – which involves several thousand dollars –  never discussed when electric cars are discussed by the media? To fathom the dereliction of this, imagine them failing to publicize some known-to-them defect affecting a non-electric car. An SUV, for instance, with a engine that needed to be replaced somewhere around 100,000 miles as part of is routine service schedule.

Yet they never mention that fact that battery replacement is a routine part of the electric car ownership experience. It is outrageous.

No mention – ever – by mainstream media people of the fact that the range of an electric car is greatly reduced when the EV must cope with very cold or very hot weather, as either of these require the use of electrically powered accessories (heat and AC, respectively) that draw lots of electrical power, which is another way of saying their use drains the battery and so reduces the range.

These – and more – constitute the line in the sand that separates belief vs. is.

You decide what The Future will be.

And ask yourself why this business is being pushed so hard, in defiance of some very stubborn facts.

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Anonymous
Anonymous

A better product doesn’t need subsidies to sell it, people will buy it because it is better.

Subsidization of electric vehicles suggests that they are not better.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus

In fact, electric autos are inefficient and waste energy (because the energy has to be generated and transmitted at a distance) on top of all their other faults…Moreover, an “all-electric” future would require wasting trillions on infrastructure, while our existing infrastructure falls apart.
No chance it will happen.

Work-In-Progress
Work-In-Progress

Why the push? Could it be that there is a shit ton of money to be made from it?

Money is made from markets moving in any direction, so I’m told. And the direction doesn’t matter as long as you are ahead of it.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

It all started with the 19th amendment.

Ardie Swarzton
Ardie Swarzton

That’s right. They vote for the lefties and the usual things happen: In Venezuela, women have to turn trick for $25 thanks to the people they voted for and here, driving a car will soon be a privilege for those that are better off. There’s your “why” btw. Driving is freedom, it gets you around without being tracked by buying tickets or station cams – unless you use EZPass. Simple, they want to take that away from us also.

unit472
unit472

I was listening to a radio investment advisor the other day as I drove home. He was extolling how the rise of the EV was going to create a multitude of new “Unicorns” his audience could invest in. Lithium miners, roadside charging stations, etc.

I was only a toddler then but it seemed similar to what the ‘atomic’ mania must have been like in the early fifties when ‘uranium’ mines were to be the ‘ground floor’ of our atomic powered future.

My guess is the con men and penny stock hustlers will get rich just as Elon Musk has hustling some EV future and that once the real cost of EV can no longer be absorbed by taxpayers the ‘dream’ will slowly fade away just as our atomic future has.

pyrrhus
pyrrhus

Yes, it’s a scam, and Musk is P.T.Barnum…But when the government subsidies go, the industry will collapse virtually overnight.

Hollywood Rob

They are pushing for this so as to eliminate the plebs ablity to travel without their knowledge. If nobody can drive more than 100 miles a day then they don’t have to worry about somebody driving to their house to shoot them. You will never see another large protest because nobody can get to the protest. The trains don’t run. The planes require a cavity search. And now you can’t drive to get there. All they need is a wasteland around washington of approximately 100 miles and they are safe. They are creating a mote out of travel distance.

Ardie Swarzton
Ardie Swarzton

100% agreed. Wrote the same thing before I read your comment, apologies.

Work-In-Progress
Work-In-Progress

That’s an interesting theory.

Coal Clinker
Coal Clinker

Folks, it should be very evident to all that the Empire is in its final days. Not a fucking thing be done to stop the Great Unraveling. All functioning economies must have affordable, reliable, and efficient transportation. The American Imperium has created a transportation system where it cannot manage the highways it is supposed to, and even worse, has essentially destroyed a vehicle system that people can afford and maintain. Their fiats controlling how cars and trucks must be designed have essentially priced them beyond the means of the average American, and their new “electric-only” transportation cannot work due to the obvious vehicle cost, maintenance, and reliability problems. Even the car industry is saying that they know no one will be able to buy a car; they will stop selling cars and will essentially become giant taxicab conglomerates where the people have to use a phone app to call up a ride just to leave the house. This whole vehicle racket will collapse, and the empire itself will come apart at the seams when the goods cannot be delivered on time and in quantity.
The only things the car and truck manufacturers have now that are of any value are their engineering archives where they are preserved blueprints of designs and research from the past. Once all of the apes fall out of the tree and go spat on the ground below, the survivors will probably have to look back at what could work in a post low credit environment where the means of transportation can be paid off in 2 or 3 years, rather than the 7 year plus terms we have today.
Time to go back to Flathead sixes and free-wheeling overdrive transmissions!

karl
karl

They’re selling electric cars in China for $6000. Not much of car, limited range, but it gets you to work and back, and, you can afford it. The electric car is much easier to build than an ICE when you just ask it to go and stop. No frills.
Battery prices are falling fast, and, when used carefully in the 20% to 90% range will last for 10 years.

Morongobill

Volvo will be electric only in 2 or 3 years per their ceo.
Well they gave away their country to the immigrants, now they are giving away their auto industry to be further politically correct.

Two, if by sea.
Two, if by sea.

All excellent comments.
It is a scam….BUT
1) Watch Rare Earth (super magnets) mining in China explode, filthying up an already ultra filthy country.
2)The auto factories have been keeping an eye on Musk as to the entire subsidy paradigm.
Obviously Volvo, GM et al are currently behind the scenes concocting legislation that will keep the factory doors open. Labor unions will fall in line.
3)Expect gasoline prices to rise, instigating the weening process from IC motors.
Ad finitum
This is but one example of the “Soft Fascism” gripping us. The examples of the free market are buried often enough to where its not a creep effect but rather in your face, daily.
Carbon credits, anyone?

Credit
Credit

imagine having to buy expensive nothings (electric car tax credits), in this case from your govt. created competitor (Tesla), to strive for suddenly implemented, govt. mandated compliance. that would drive any business nuts. you may even act irrationally, like going into the government subsidy business yourself. then, when all depend on the subsidies for survival, you end up with another example of the old-fashioned variety of fascism. former free capital intense companies run by the govy. this has already been accomplished in health care and the trend will continue with oligarchs cashing in again..

Robert
Robert

The biggest driver of EV use is the massive pollution of Chinese cities and the government’s push to reduce it by eliminating gas and diesel vehicles: huge new taxes have been imposed there for all but electric vehicles. And since Chinese sales are now vital to most NA and European manufacturers, they cannot do enough to similarly push domestic production. Besides, in theory, electric cars, not needing expensive muffler and exhaust systems, heavy engines, radiators or carburators should be cheaper to produce, especially as battery costs continue to come down.

Flying Monkey
Flying Monkey

Fast chargers… the faster you charge, the faster you kill the battery too. For NiMh you should keep the charge rate 1/5 the capacity or less or you will effect the life performance of the battery. Every time a battery is “fast” charged it cuts down on its service life. (Example: 2500 mahr capacity—> max. charge rate 500 ma)

Flying Monkey
Flying Monkey

I did some quick calculations:
A 39 MPG gasoline car might have carbon emissions (not CO2) of 3.76 kg C/100 km.
(not including energy/carbon to make the gasoline) or 131 Gram CO2/km
1 kg C is 3.5 kg CO2 Carbon has a molecular weight of 12, CO2 42 so the ratio is 42/12 or 3.5 (3.76 x 3.5 = 13.1 kg/100km or 131 gr/km)

Assume a steam power plant with an efficiency of 46%, transmission efficiency of 95%, and charging/discharging LiIon battery efficiency of 90%.

For a Nissan Leaf (122 w hr/km)
Electricity from coal: 8.7 kg C/100 km
Electricity from natural Gas: 4.36 kg C/100 km
Electricity from fuel oil: 6.22 kg C/100 km
Electricity from gas: high efficiency combined cycle: 3.07 kg C/100 km.

The carbon in the battery manufacture is said to be between 100-200 kg/KWhr battery capacity. The Nissan leaf has a 30 KWhr battery. If it last 250,000 km the amortized CO2 is between 12 and 24 gram CO2/km.

A 100 kwhr Tesla battery might @300,000 amortizes to 33 to 66 gram CO2/km.

A Tesla might get 180 whr/km or need 53% more energy/km than a Nissan Leaf.

karl
karl

A 39 mpg car ( highway ) will spend most of its time getting 20 mpg if it is owned and used in an urban enviorment-where most cars live.
The electric car gets its best energy use in a start stop area. Regen. braking and lower wind resistance.

Jake
Jake

My brother in law has a Toyota Avalon hybrid and averages 38.5 mpg. I have an Avalon with the 3.5L V-6. Mine has a lifetime average of 27 and usually gets 35 highway @75-80 with the a/c running.
The hurricanes made it hard for folks to get gas and impossible for travelers to get their electric Teslas charged. I can see scenarios that make the electrics novelties in the future like Deloreans.
The new patent granted to Mazda(?) if I recall will make electric non-competitive with fueled internal combustion in cost and emissions.

karl
karl

I see the price of crude oil trading above $100 in 5 years. certainly in 7 years.
I bought 5000 shares of OIL at $ 6.90 2 years ago. Currently at $5.00, but, I’m patient. I expect it to go above $24. I will take a triple in 8 years.

AriusArmenian
AriusArmenian

US elites don’t like the gas/electric hybrid engine. They don’t like it so much they let Toyota eat their lunch in that part of the market.

The problem could be the supremacist fundamentalist mentality in the US. The hybrid engine is not ‘pure’ enough to their kind of thinking. In Jungian psychology this is an example of the Puer aeternus archetype – expressed in human action as a striving for perfection.

I see the same insanity of US elites in the global geopolitical space. From the US it’s usually ‘do what we say or we demonize then bomb you’. If you don’t submit the US will perfect you even if it takes massive chaos that never ends.

karl
karl

The reason for the push to electric cars is that the US is almost out of recoverable oil. When they sell you a car that will last for 25 years, they won’t tell you that there may not be affordable gas in 15 years.
The estimates of recoverable oil in the US are from 30 billion barrels to 60 billion barrels. We drill and pump 3.6 billion barrels a year from US soil.
Yes, 8 to 17 years until we are down to pumping 2 million barrels a day from thousands of stripper wells instead of the 9,7 million barrels we pump today. There will be oil for sale from overseas, but, it won’t be cheap oil. You think our balance of payments are bad now. Just wait.
Because the time to turn over the auto fleet is about 22 years,those in the know are trying to get ahead of the problem.

Hollywood Rob

karl is right

Two, if by sea
Two, if by sea

Great point. I failed to mention the clear insinuation towards the House of Saud.
Is it possible the currency wars being currently waged by China etc are having an effect? Is this Uncle Sam’s shot across the bow at the regime who’s been nothing but trouble since J.D. Rockefeller single handedly built their country?
Stay tuned.

pdxr13
pdxr13

A used car is the best car. “Better than Nothing” ICE transport for distances and loads that a bicycle can not handle. A used van is excellent, and getting 11mpg is fine. 100% down, repairs that are mostly DIY, junkyard parts.

I have a 1983 MBZ 240D and a 1995 Caprice 9C1. Both sit, a lot. A Dodge van with a camper package from 1970’s/1980’s would be a fine addition. I could store bikes in it.

Truther
Truther

The truth is in order for the NWO to remain in power they need money. Money is based on money flow and that is based on inflation. If you look at everything and every narrative (even trumps policies) and if you ask 2 questions, 1-will this increase the costs and make money flow increase? 2- will this cause inflation in the future? You will see what is really going on. They are all doing everything to increase inflation but I fear there will come a time when inflation on everything along with limited supply and manufacturing chains cause rampant consistent inflation allowing the 1% to become the .01% and then dictatorship from a loud mouthed nationalist promoting socialism and revolution…….this day is coming..
Look into
1-Trumps tariffs imposed
2-oil refineries age and status
3-regulations and congressional laws and see how they will affect costs of manufacturing and these manufacturers competitors magically have embedded tarrifs etc
4-narratives such as the above and self driving cars…the more unreliable the higher the costs
5-regarding self driving cars, it will one day be too costly as they will raise insurance costs and lie that self driving cars are safer then several years after imposing laws 99% will be in self driving cars they are magically unsafe and insurance increases along with numerous required inspections, forcing millions to rely on govt travel or mass travel, remember travel in your own car is freedom, and they hate freedom….
Just to name a few to get your mind moving……

c1ue
c1ue

I rent cars when I drive to Vegas – in the past because I didn’t want to put 1200+ miles on my car, today because I don’t even have a car.
The difference between a hybrid vs. say, a Nissan Altima, is about 8 mpg. Somewhat significant, but then again the hybrids have such a puny engine that I’m laboring up the various hills I have to cross. If I drove a similarly engined, gasoline powered car, I am sure the mpg difference would be *a lot* less.
As for motivation, it ain’t rocket science.
California has enormous regulatory incentives for “green” cars ranging from the everyday carpool lane eligible stickers so that single person “green’ cars can legally use the carpool lanes to the requirement that all manufacturers selling cars in California have to have some % of “green” cars or get penalized. It is this particular law which powers the one division within Tesla that makes what a profit – they sell their “green” credits to the other car manufacturers for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Equally, there are a lot of private sector advocates pushing for electric cars because they see the chance to get in early on a potential new industry. That’s what venture capitalism is all about, and that’s what Tesla is banking on.
Lastly, China. China has little to no fossil fuels of its own outside of coal. There are a lot of strategic reasons why China would love to see more of its population, which are buying cars like mad, go electric – not least the massive nuclear, solar and wind installations China is putting in every day.
Note that this has relatively little to do with “green” politics advocacy, but vastly more to do with economic self sufficiency.
China isn’t particularly enamored of its vulnerability to oceanic interdiction of energy imports coming from the Middle East – whether by the US or India. And while they have an energy pact with Russia, equally there are not so distant historical animosities between the 2 nations. Even when China and Russia were both Communist, they fought and shot each other’s troops.
Siberia is right there…

Huck Finn
Huck Finn

Maybe a couple things going on with this. I see it as another step in agenda 21. The ultimate goal of which is to massively reduce the human population, herd people into high density urban areas, make the vast majority of the US into wilderness, eliminate ownership of private property, restrict individual rights like speech, self-defense, travel, etc. When EVs are mandated you will of necessity have to live within a short range of where you work and shop, making it difficult to live any distance from a high density urban area. The push for driverless cars is also designed to eliminate the private ownership of transportation.

Mandating EVs will also spur the transition of a massive amount of wealth. Sorry, but that ICE you’re driving that’s paid for and costs little to operate, you’ll have to give that up and purchase something brand new and exorbitantly expensive. Much like their cash for clunkers program, it’s out with the old and in with the new. And If you can’t afford to buy one, well then, it’s public transportation for you!

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