Posted by I was reading the Calgary Herald and saw the article “Canada coasting in slow lane for electric car usage, support“. There is a very good reason for that: electric cars suck in cold weather and they cost too much given that average Canadians have less purchasing power than than their American counterparts. When I was a teenager, the best selling car in the USA was the Honda Accord while in Canada, it was the smaller Honda Civic not because of a preference for smaller cars but primarily because Canadians couldn’t afford the larger car. Never fear though, the enviro-hippies have propaganda out there to bamboozle the public like this great infotainment site (Myths Busted!) complete with cool cartoons to make it easier to understand.
Well, lets go ahead and debunk the mythbusters.
Myth 1: Electric cars cost too much. They actually do despite the sad attempt by the site to say they are affordable. Take the Nissan Leaf which the article also cites. The price of the Nissan Leaf “starts at” C$33,998 and boasts “up to 172km (107 miles)” in range with a full charge (photo on left). The problem is that the Nissan Versa, a similar sized five seat hatchback (photo right) “starts at” C$14,498. Imagine you’re an average consumer looking to “save the planet” and walk into the dealership to buy an all electric vehicle only to find that it costs double what a similar sized gasoline powered car does. Heck, you can buy a Nissan Pathfinder, a full-sized SUV that seats seven with a V6 engine, for less (C$32,598).
With oil prices as low as they are, it is very hard to justify the huge additional upfront cost as Bloomberg points out in their article “the Toyota Prius is for drivers who stink at math“. The argument made in this article that the cost of fueling up for a cross-country Los Angeles to New York trip is doubly irrelevant for a full EV (as opposed to the hybrid Prius) given the range of 100 miles for an electric car means you would be stopping every hour or two of the trip and that’s if you manage to find a fast charging station. You should probably factor in the cost of all the additional motel stops and opportunity cost of lost time into your calculations as well. But then again, eco-hippies are not known for their financial acumen. What Bloomberg failed to take into account is the fact that Prius drivers have always stunk at math. As the satirical cartoon South Park puts it, Prius are for “smug” douches from San Francisco who are more interested in showing off their “green” credentials. Studies have shown that Prius owners actually pay a premium for the privilege of showing a marque of their environment friendliness – an obtuse hipster status symbol – so it’s obvious that it’s more about personal self-projected image than saving the planet.
Myth 2: We don’t have enough charging stations to support electric cars. Typically, a Nissan Leaf will take over 12 hours to charge from a conventional 120V outlet, about 8 hours plugged into a specially designed 240V home outlet, or about 30 minutes (for an 80% charge) from a super fast 480V quick-charge system. So yes, if you want to just drive it to work and back and plug it in every night, a short-range EV is probably enough for your everyday needs. As the article points out, “Buy a car for the 98 per cent, not the two per cent”. The problem is that 2% could end up being a huge pain in the butt if you, for example, forget to charge your car and then in the morning rush figure you still have enough to get to work only to go dead on the middle of the freeway.
Myth 3: Canada is too cold for electric cars. The article admits that range can be cut in less than half in very cold weather (from 172km to 80km). It then goes on to tell you that this is still sufficient for most people and how you can adjust to driving an EV in cold weather. This basically revolves around keeping your car plugged in a heated garage at home, pre-heating before you leave (i.e. while the car is still plugged in), don’t use the heater in your car because that eats battery life like crazy, and driving with full winter gear and gloves on to stay warm in your car. It may be a #firstworldproblem but winters in Canada suck enough as it is; I really don’t need to add more misery to it. The last thing I want is to be freezing my butt off in my EV hoping that keeping the heater off is sufficient for me not end up being stranded in -30C weather by the side of the road with a dead battery. You want to go through all that stress, worry and angst in a pathetic attempt to feel better about yourself and that you’re “saving the planet”, power to you brother but count me out.
Myth 4: Electric car batteries are made from rare metals. We don’t have enough to supply a growing battery market. The “myth” debunking focuses on “shortages” of Lithium used in making Lithium-Ion batteries but that is not where the true problem is. I actually know quite a bit about this as I researched the largest rare earth company on the planet. Based in Baotao in Inner Mongolia, this one mine provided over half of China’s rare earth supply which, in turn, accounted for over 90% of the world’s rare earth supply. The average Toyota Prius also happens to require about 20 pounds of the stuff to make. The simple truth is that the term rare earth is a misnomer in that there is nothing “rare” about the elements in this portion of the period table. The only problem is that it is relatively hard to find them in concentrations that are economical to mine and process. The other big problem is that the mining and processing process for rare earths is an ecological nightmare which is why the last American mine in California shut down in the 80s and China (not known for its stringent ecological requirements) became the virtual sole supplier to the world. The problem has never been one of scarcity, but sadly batteries and electrical generators are extremely ecologically dirty. The entire life cycle of batteries ranging from the extraction and processing of the raw materials to their ultimate disposal – a fact that the eco-hippies seem to always conveniently ignore – is an ecological nightmare. I guess it’s OK to be a smug tree-hugger in San Francisco as long as the guys dying of cancer and pollution that made your battery-powered car and smartphone possible are half-way across the world. You can read about the ecological disaster in this BBC report. If you (like most Canadians who get their news through the Canadian Brainwashing Corporation) thought the Canadian Oil Sands were Mordor on Earth, you’ve obviously never been to Baotao, China.
The remaining three myths are just versions and re-hashes of the ones above to a certain degree. Batteries do take too long to charge given the inherent range restrictions but fast charging stations and short-range commuting means that is not an insurmountable problem. Old batteries, on the other hand, are indeed toxic waste just as new batteries are. Everyone knows your cellphone and laptop batteries can only take so many charges – generally about 500-1500. In other words, if you charge your batteries everyday like the proponents of EV cars suggest, you can expect to have to replace your entire battery set every 5 years. Nissan suggest the costs of replacing the batteries is about the same as replacing the engine.
Electric Vehicles (EV) are here to stay and will probably gain greater usage over time as prices come down and techology improves. It is entirely probable that they will eventually replace the internal combustion engine over the long run just as oil supplanted coal as the primary fuel for transportation over a century ago. Nonetheless, blatant lies and misdirection about how “clean”, “cost-effective”, and “efficient” EV’s are is a disservice to the eco-hippies who promote their use. Like everything in life, EV’s have their strengths and weaknesses, their pros and cons. These are not “myths” – they are facts. Sad attempts to candy coat every negative aspect of battery powered electric vehicle while blatantly lying about other things such as cost (they only make sense with huge government subsidies) only proves that this is just another battle of dogma and ideology – not one of science, economics and rationality.
UPDATE 1 (6 July 2017): Every day, I get up in the morning and have to do a double-take through bleary sleep-filled eyes when I read the news. Such was the case today as the National Post printed an Associated Press report that Volvo is going to stop making all-petrol (gasoline) cars by 2019. That’s the state of the news that we get today. An article copied verbatim by a Canadian publication, filed by the AP in Helsinki, Finland about a Swedish company that’s owned by the Chinese – not a great omen of accuracy or in-depth knowledge. Given that the article says “General Motors Co. is selling the all-electric Chevy Bolt”… ummm that would be “Volt” as in Alessandro Volta but hey, everyone makes spelling errors right? “Volvo plans to build only electric and hybrid vehicles starting in 2019, making it the first major automaker to abandon cars and SUVs powered solely by the internal combustion engine.” What’s the definition of “major automaker”? Well it’s Volvo is certainly not in the top 15 in the world, and probably not even in the top 30 although I’m too lazy to research this.
In fact, Volvo’s largest market in China, home of parent Geely, where it sold over 90,000 vehicles last year. You know, China, that country that overtook America to be the largest auto market in the world in 2010. I fact, more cars are sold in Asia than in North America and Europe combine and the largest chunk of that, by far, is China.
But let’s not nit-pick. The thrust of all the articles about Volvo’s announcement is that the petrol engine is doomed to be relegated to the dustbin of history. That Nicola Tesla will be vindicated by history and that the electric car will reign supreme soon. As I said, the long-term trend is probably this way but the pace of the gasoline vehicle apocalypse, as always, is probably greatly exaggerated. Here is a more insightful and educated view from Forbes which tells us, “It’s this [E.U.] law, rather than any threat by Tesla’s loss-making, rounding-error volumes, that is driving them all into electrification”. Yup, it’s not the invisible hand of Adam Smith nor compelling business economics that is driving this move, it’s the very visible hand of government busy-bodies legislating this into fact as is the same case with most “green” technologies whether through outright laws like emission controls in the EU or California or massive tax-payer funded subsidies. As the Forbes article points out, “Now, Volvo’s target is to sell a million electrified cars by 2025, but there’s a lot to be careful of in that wording. “Electrified” doesn’t mean “Electric”, and that’s the biggie. Secondly, it wants to sell a million electrified cars by 2025. That’s a million in total, counting from now, not a million per year. Thirdly, when Samuelsson used the word “solely”, he meant its future internal-combustion engines would be helped by a soothing electrical hand, not be shoved out of the engine bay altogether… When you look at it like that, Volvo’s announcement was not especially eye-popping.”
But my favourite quote from this article is, “That’s not to throw shade at Volvo, but at the journalists who have misrepresented or misunderstood what Volvo’s announcement really means.” Volvo just made an announcement saying they were going to get rid of all “petrol-only” cars by 2019 and the “journalists” 99% of whom are latte-sipping eco-nuts driving their pretentious Toyota Priuses (they can’t afford a Tesla) just lapped it up like kittens drinking warm milk. Only one bothered to stop for five minutes and actually think about what was said and analyse the actual facts and data to draw a very different conclusion from the rest of the “walking dead” media. But that’s how the truth gets distorted nowadays – not by telling outright lies but just massive subjective reporting of half-truths with no thought behind them.