Demise for the push for Green Energy.. I see American's are finally waking up!

[oldcarguy]

In general most Green Energy stocks are falling faster then Joe Biden' popularity.

The sales for EV has been fading as well. No intelligent person would invest in one today. Indeed there was hype, but it's the rich that were purchasing them. Or a college professor that think they're saving the planet. with big Government subsidies. While with Bidenflation the average person cannot afford to pay $20,000.00 premium for a battery. Let alone a loaf of bread!

Look at the two recent London fires from EV busses. The city was quick to pull off all EV buses. Fires are common place with EV's...

Hertz Car Rental's are selling off 20,000 Tesla's replacing them with gas powered cars. No one cares to rent them.

Anybody see that the recent cold weather in Chicago has caused many to abandon their EV's because they cannot find a charger or cannot be charged at all in frigid temperatures.
 
I had a fun time with a Tesla owner asking to sit in my nice warm motor home on I77 in a huge snow storm. While his gas saving EV was dead during a four hour backup. No one moved an inch. Yet I had 150 gallons of diesel in my coach. That could provide warmth for over a month! For that matter I could wait out the winter!

Indeed we should strive for the best mileage for new vehicles. But I think a better push would be increase our oil production. And decrease the price of fuel under $2.00 per gallon. Now that makes sense and would be good for the working person.

[TexasT]

trust me when I say, those in power only want votes from us commoners(and after that last election I'm not even sure that matters any more). what is best for the working people isn't even on their agenda.

[fatfillup]

Indeed we should strive for the best mileage for new vehicles. But I think a better push would be increase our oil production. And decrease the price of fuel under $2.00 per gallon. Now that makes sense and would be good for the working person.

Lot to unpack here

And always remember, if something is good for one group, there most likely is another group for whom it will be bad

$2/GAL gas would be good for the working person, especially the lower income folks.
BUT, we can't produce $2 gas in this country.  When it dropped that low, the wells were shut down, no profit or not enough.  Don't know where the good number is for the domestic producers but likely $70 a barrel or so.

Now, increasing production would be great for jobs, and better yet, build new refineries and pipe lines.
And we can't look just at oil.  Nuclear would solve a lot of problems, and create some too.  And any other promising effective ways to generate power.  Lots of employment opportunity there, if it could happen. 

As to the EV's.  I am a fan but not an owner.  Very well could be one day but the deal would have to be great.  Note, I would still hae an ICE or 3 in the stable.  I have seen stats that EV's catch on fire about the same rate as other vehicles, just the fires are far worse.  I know, you can find stats that say anything you want but I think its close.  Have talked with a few owners and they are passionate about their Teslas. 

Owning an EV requires a different thinking about using your car, especially if it's your only one and lots of folks choose not to want to change and that is fine.  And some that purchase never adjusted their patterns and had issues in the cold.  But I am willing to bet there were far more that ran in Chicago then didn't.

 

[slip knot]

I think the EV market will eventually come around. Its still a fledgling technology with lots of potential for failure that need to be resolved. I think the biggest issue is that the Gov. is mandating we make changes. Thats where the rub is. The more you tell me i must do something the more I'm going to resist.

Green energy is viable in certain instances. But its limited potential needs to be addressed and admitted. The Feds are forcing it on us and its creating some major issues. I see what happened in Texas a few years back. our electrical grid was headed to failure during a winter storm and the electric companies started going offline due to overloaded systems. One of the major reasons was the Fed had mandated that 25% of your generation had to be renewable energy. Those renewables crashed during that winter storm and the grid crashed along with it. Now Texas has a proliferation of diesel generators scattered across the state to bring online when trouble occurs. We still have our 25% renewables but there are diesel generators spinning electricity during bad weather. I've got a grid tied 1.3 MW generator at my office that ran @40 hours the past weeks cold spell. Converting diesel into electricity is very foolish and very expensive. And its us rate payers that take it in the butt.

Renewable energy should not be considered firm energy.

[Uncle Buck]

I hope to either be too old to drive anymore, or dead before the total demise of the ICE. I have absolutely zero interest in driving,  let alone owning an EV. I don't even care how well EV's operate in the future once the bigs are worked out, I am just that disinterested in the whole idea. To me, all EV's are nothing more than a glorified cordless drill with wheels! Again, to me, I find the whole thing absolutely reprehensible.

Honestly,  every story I read about EV problems with those on the road today pleases me greatly.

Despite my distain for EV's I know they will soon render ICE obsolete. I just hope there are enough setbacks to the technology just a few more decades.

[muddy]

I think the issues with EVs just have been thought out or thought of. Electric forklifts have been around for a long time. Fires on them are far less common then on LP forklifts.



Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

[goodfellow]

EV's are going through an evolution themselves. Remember at the turn of the 19th to 20th century there were many competing engine and car designs. Electrics were everywhere back in the early days of the automobile, but eventually the ICE designs won the battle.

Today we're sort of in the same situation. Lots of competing electric drive designs -- hybrid, full battery only, and hydrogen fuel cells. I'm placing my bets on hydrogen fuel cells. Compressed hydrogen is relatively easy to store and you can fill your tank in about the same time as with gasoline. It's clean and no battery or electric component waste to dispose of in the long term. Hydrogen can be retrofit to today's ICE engines (just like NG or propane) and allow these old cars to be driven until they are eventually crushed. Hydrogen fuel cell technology has been around for over 100 years, but we're just now able to make them cost effective and small enough to power an electric car.

Most of our Hydrogen is produced from NG, and the US is currently sitting on the largest NG reserves discovered to date. If the infrastructure can be built quickly, then it's a win/win. The government still gets to tax the fuel for the national highway fund, and the consumer will use a fuel that is purchased and dispensed in the same manner as was gasoline. Not a big learning curve involved.

[oldcarguy]

Any time the government throws money into anything. Particularity in the vast quantities it has to  promote EV's. Nothing good comes from it. If an idea is that good the cost will be absorbed by the user and not the tax payers. Our nation needs to rethink the whole EV verses gasoline powered vehicles.
Can you imagine at the start of  the automobile industry the government coughed up billions of dollars to set up gas stations like they are setting up EV charging stations today? Gasoline was first sold at small drug and hardware stores. As the popularity of the automobile increased. Gasoline stations began appearing. So many doubled as repair shop. No subsidies there, and it worked out on its' own...
 
Battery powered vehicles have their place. In my 45 years managing manufacturing plants. I insisted using electric lift trucks. Sure the first lift trucks were a miss. But soon could out perform propane / gasoline lift trucks. They used lead acid batteries that provided good counter weights. Could run 8 to 14 hours between charges. And can be exchanged at the shops charging station or the lift truck could sit out 8 hours to charge. Then put back into service. Depending on size, the battery cost was around $5,000.00 with a life of at least 10 to 15 years. And after that the batteries can be rebuild-able as individual cells that failed could be replaced. And could return to service rather then scrapping it out.... The overall cost of electric lift trucks were less than propane models. And there's no exhaust gas emitted in the plants. Or dragging propane bottles around when one ran out of fuel..

[fatfillup]

I think the biggest issue is that the Gov. is mandating we make changes. Thats where the rub is. The more you tell me i must do something the more I'm going to resist.

Been giving this some thought lately.  I don't like to told I have to do something by .gov either but there are many examples where it has worked out for the better.

Mandatory seat belt laws. I resisted being forced to wear a seat belt but now it is second nature and so much safer.  Air bags, crumple zones, safety glass are all things mandated by .gov but they make driving safer.

Emission controls, they are partly to blame for about killing the domestic car industry back in the 70's but look at the outcome.  We have far cleaner air now, plus we have more powerful and more efficient cars.  Chances of that happening without laws forcing it to happen are about none.

Not regulation but look at all the benefits we get from space exploration that was 100% funded by taxpayers up until recently.  Like the internet or you cell phone?  Wouldn't be where we are today without .gov dumping money into technology.  How about GPS?

My point is, even though .gov is intrusive, inefficient, wasteful and probably a lot of other negative things I can't think of this minute, a lot of good eventually comes because of them.  Sometimes we need to step back and look at the big picture and down the road and not only what is best for us this second.

UB, as to the electric cars, I bought a bunch of tools and boxes from a guy who was pretty far up Telsa's service department and then went to work for Lucid and now consults to both of them.  He has no love for Tesla, the company but said if you are a car guy, there is no way you wouldn't giggle like school girl when you put your foot into an upper level EV.  The acceleration is stupid fast.

[pep]

Without raining on anyone's parade a forklift in a warehouse is much different. Than owning & driving these golf carts as daily transportation.

Wherehouse the recharger is always visible & accessible. Question, if 50% of all vehicles were electric. Just how many charging stations can one even begin to imagine could be required?

Pumping up these batteries takes HOURs not minutes. Don't seem to adapt very well to the natural changes in the weather patterns, as we lol are seeing.

Pipe dreams are ok, but the reality is not so glorious.

Here is how far an EV zealot will go to promote the golf carts. This guy was trying to justify or list the advantages of owning.

"1/5 the fuel cost per mile, no oil changes, no standing in the heat, cold, wind, etc. to add fuel, an interior that is the exact temperature you prefer when you get in, brake pads that could last forever since they are not needed except for emergencies, one pedal driving, those are the tip of the iceberg."

So knowing me what question would I ask: how about not getting struck by lightning, when charging another EV advantage ......

A gas station has the big advantage of having a supply onsite. Worst case all power is lost no way to pump the fuel. Easily be solved with a portable generator or backup.

Cut the cable for the electric charger you're TOAST, finding the interruption another challenge. And how or who would do that? Thinking for a moment how many instances, construction & city maintenance personnel cut, or dig through water, network cables & natural gas supply lines.

None of those take a gas station offline, one more thought and I'm done. How much time do most spend right now worried about the charge of that stupid cell?

[fatfillup]

Remember, it doesn't have to be an either or question.

For most, its an either and question.

I can either have ICE(s), and I can have Ice(s) and an EV.  I think that is my plan.  Might be a hybrid at first

[skfarmer]

i drove a toyata hybrid van from ft myer fl to minneapolis mn a couple years ago. it performed well but kind of sucked to drive. my only time with an ev or hybrid.

we have been hovering at+10 to -20 the last week. pretty nice to have ice engines that put out real heat. mine have all started but the lower than -20 they get pretty crabby.

i have an electric capacity to add an ev and could set up a station but there is no way i could charge my fleet of equipment if it was all battery. the infrastruture would not handle it. my 5000 gallon diesel fuel capacity however allows me unlimited recharge time for weeks if not months.

[TexasT]

https://www.unilad.com/news/tesla-car-electric-cost-money-saved-fuel-593867-20240118

this person thinks they saved $1800 but they didn't account for the time they sat there in the vehicle while it charged or if they didn't sit there, the time and such they put on someone to pick them up and drop them back off when it was charging. maybe they charged while shopping or at work. but from the place I fuel the work truck they have ten or so of the Tesla chargers and people are sitting in the vehicle at most I see sitting there. even at midnight there are people there charging their car up.

couldn't give me one. the depreciation seems to me mind numbing and hertz is dumping 20k of them into the used market. that won't help the value of any of em.