Tag Archive for: ElectricVehicleToxicity

Death of the EV Dream, Er, Nightmare

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Now that the American Dream has been turned into a nightmare in part by overspending that has led to the highest interest rates in the 21st Century, it is high time to admit that, as Melanie Mcdonagh writes in The Telegraph, the electric vehicle dream, too, “has turned into a nightmare.”

Mcdonagh, who admits she does not drive, points out many problems, among them the horrific impact when a heavy, quiet-running electric vehicle hits an unsuspecting pedestrian or a cyclist. She also notes that some of these “vehicles” are collecting data on route history and road speed that governments (and corporations) can use for remote surveillance (and marketing gimmickry). Another problem is that the much heavier EVs could collapse bridges and force lengthy detours.

Mcdonagh, however, has barely scratched the surface of the mess created by the hipster culture that believes everything sacred must be sacrificed before the god of carbon (dioxide) reduction. It turns out that manufacturing electric vehicles has to date been a bad investment for automakers, despite all the subsidies.

Ford Motor Co. says it will lose $3 billion on EV sales this year, after losing $900 million in 2021 and $2.1 billion in 2022, when the company sold 96,000 units. Price drops by Ford and Tesla (and doubtless other companies) are not coming because the vehicles are cheaper to manufacture but because demand has slowed despite the new Biden subsidies. As Robert Bryce points out, Ford in the first quarter of this year lost $66,446 on every EV it sold.

One reason for the huge losses is the increasing price of battery materials, reflected in the 7 percent increase in the volume-weighted average for lithium-ion battery packs from 2021 to 2022. The Biden subsidies are supposed to offset such costs, just as the Biden build in America plan (in Michigan, at least, by Chinese companies) has no chance of diminishing China’s huge lead in EV battery and vehicle production.

Senator John Kennedy (R, LA) recently asked, “If electric cars are so swell. why does government have to pay people to drive them?”

A new J.D. Power report points to a number of reasons that American consumers are sticking with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. While the highest objections to EVs are high prices and lack of public charging infrastructure, vehicle range, charging times, and the threat of grid disruptions that render EVs useless are also deterrents. Other concerns are fires, power surges that lead to accidents, towing capacity and range, and performance in bad weather.

Even a third of Gen Z shoppers, who have been bombarded with pro-EV propaganda for most of their lives, admit they are unlikely to buy one.

It is obvious that the EV boom, such as it is, has been powered nearly entirely by heavy subsidies and marketing hype initiated by bureaucrats and politicians, most of whom have no background in auto sales or any service industries. Their M.O. is bribery and thuggery (forcing people into unwanted choices through market manipulation). Automakers are beginning to balk at these techniques, if only because they see their customer base shrinking once people cannot buy the vehicles they have used for decades.

While Ford and other companies are now boasting of the towing capacity of their EVs, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. MotorBiscuit last month reported that the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T can be souped up to tow 10,000 pounds, far short of the gasoline-powered F-150, but with an average range of only 88 miles. That hardly works for multiple tows in a day or for towing a trailer to a campsite 100 or more miles from home.

Imagine putting your family into the truck, hitching up the Airstream, and driving out to the mountains for a weekend at the lake. Finding a charging station where you don’t have to unhitch the trailer to get to the plug-in is a huge challenge, and you have to do this multiple times on a 300-mile trip. With a maximum 90-mile range, you need to recharge every 60 or 70 miles, taking 30 minutes or more for each recharge. You lose an entire day each way. So practical.

Far worse, though, are the risks and challenges to tow truck drivers with an EV that has stopped running. Not only are the vehicles heavy, they are dead weight, locked in park, and potentially suspect to spontaneous fires that ordinary extinguishers cannot put out. A 2021 National Transportation Safety Board report notes that “the energy remaining in a damaged high-voltage lithium-ion battery, known as stranded energy, poses a risk of electric shock and creates the potential for thermal runaway that can result in battery reignition and fire.”

Of course, the bean counters with their glorious visions for an all-electric future (replete with blackouts, price increases, and other tricks to keep the majority of people off the roads entirely) do not take into consideration ANY of the real reasons people drive cars and trucks. Their ONLY consideration appears to be the imaginary reduction in carbon dioxide emissions their computer models insist can only happen by inconveniencing “the little people.”

But should those “little people” elect leaders who will end the inflationary subsidies and dictatorial mandates (including those that ban gas appliances, cripple the performance of dishwashers and HVAC units, etc.), the automakers who have heavily invested in EVs will adjust to real market conditions and continue improving long-cherished technologies.

In today’s increasingly top-down world, Mcdonagh points out that “you can’t even discuss the problems with electric cars without getting jumped on.” That is already beginning to change, especially in a freedom-loving America that has had a century-long love affair with the open road.

Meanwhile, lurking in the shadows is an option that could both reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and keep ICE vehicles on the road. Hydrogen-based synthetic e-fuels may be expensive today, but they can power ICE vehicles today and tomorrow without sacrificing a nation to the whims of China’s maniacal leadership.

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This article was published by CFACT, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and is reproduced with permission.

Biden’s Fascistic EV Edict

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

President Joe Biden is set to “transform” and “remake” the entire auto industry—“first with carrots, now with sticks”—notes The Washington Post, as if dictating the output of a major industry is within the governing purview of the executive branch.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing draconian emissions limits for vehicles, ensuring that 67% of all new passenger cars and trucks produced within nine years will be electric. This is state coercion. It is undemocratic. We are not governed; we are managed.

In fascist economies, a powerful centralized state—often led by a demagogue who plays on the nationalistic impulses of people—controls both manufacturing and commerce and dictates prices and wages for the “common good.” Any unpatriotic excessive profits are captured by the state. All economic activity must meet state approval. And crony, rent-seeking companies are willing participants.

Now, I’m not saying we already live in a fascist economic state. I’m just saying the Democratic Party economic platform sounds like it wishes we were.

The coverage of Biden’s edict has gone exactly as one might expect. “Biden makes huge push for electric vehicles. Is America ready?” asks Politico, for instance.

The conceit of so much modern media coverage rests on the assumption that the Left’s ideas are part of an inevitable societal evolution toward enlightenment. The only question remaining is when will the slaw-jawed yokels in Indiana and Texas finally catch on.

I’m sorry, EVs are not a technological advancement—or much of an environmental one—over vehicles with internal combustion engines. Most of the comforts EV makers like to brag about have been a regular feature of gas-powered cars for decades. At best, EVs are a lateral technology. And, as far as practicality, cost, and comfort go, they’re a regression.

If EVs are more efficient and save us money, as administration officials claim, manufacturers would not have to be compelled and bribed into producing them.

The problem for Democrats is that consumers already have perfectly useful and affordable gas-powered cars that, until recently, could be cheaply fueled and driven long distances without stopping for long periods of time.

Fossil fuels—also the predominant energy source used to power electric cars—are the most efficient, affordable, portable, and useful form of energy. We have a vast supply of it. In recent years, we’ve become the world’s largest oil producer. There are tens of billions of easily accessible barrels of fossil fuels here at home and vast amounts around the world.

By the time we run out, if ever, we will have invented far better ways to move vehicles than plugging an EV battery—which is made by emitting twice as many gases into the air as a traditional car engine—into an antiquated windmill.

“I want to let everybody know that this EPA is committed to protecting the health and well-being of every single person on this planet,” the EPA’s Michael Regan explained when announcing the edicts.

No one is safer in an EV than a gas-powered vehicle. The authoritarian’s justification for economic control is almost always “safety.” But the entire “safety” claim is tethered to the perpetually disproven theory that our society can’t safely—and relatively cheaply—adapt to slight changes in climate.

If the state can regulate “greenhouse gases” as an existential threat, it has the unfettered power to regulate virtually the entire economy. This is why politicians treat every hurricane, tornado, and flood as an apocalyptic event. But in almost every quantifiable way, the climate is less dangerous to mankind now than it has ever been. And the more they try to scare us, the less people care.

So let the Chinese communists worry about keeping their population “safe.” Let’s keep this one innovative, open, and free.

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This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

The Scam Called ESG

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Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

What is this thing called ESG?  It stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. Sounds great, doesn’t it? What could possibly be the harm of seeking to promote these virtues in our corporations? I mean, seriously, who doesn’t want companies that seek to emulate these values? I will be the first to admit that when I first heard of it, it sounded like a good idea. How can it be bad?

The main problem lies in their root: they are all completely subjective measures. There is no empirical methodology for applying these value scores to a company. It begins with a failed investment banking analyst who is tasked with scoring companies on these values. Why ‘failed’? Because if they were any good at evaluating industries and companies, they would still be doing it.

And since ESG is subjective by its nature, the movement has been hijacked by the left and its subjective values. A company that mines coal with US labor gets a poor score, while a solar panel manufacturer in China that uses slave labor and is owned by a dictatorship gets a high score. How does that make any sense?

Let’s begin by looking at the energy industry. By their own admission, almost every ESG analyst will state that an energy company is ‘bad’ because they employ fossil fuels for the bulk of their energy creation. Thus, all of the major banks in this country will no longer offer credit and financial services to these firms (they want to preserve their own ESG scores). Almost all oil drilling and exploration on public land have been terminated because using fossil fuels will destroy the environment. By starving the industry of capital and reducing production on public lands, ESG will create its own energy crisis.

The new definition of ESG is this:  Energy Shortages Guaranteed.

In the world of the ‘woke’ ideologues who promote this line of thought believe it is better to have places like Venezuela and the Middle East supply our oil than it is to get it here. This is in spite of the fact that the USA has greater oil reserves than almost any other nation on earth. We also are much cleaner producers.

Moreover, if fossil fuels are such a danger to the earth, why does Venezuelan or Saudi oil get a pass? Does the earth know the difference? Are these countries not part of the global ecosystem?

The solution to this self-inflicted energy crisis is to encourage the use of electric vehicles (EVs). It may come as a surprise to learn that EVs are not all that ‘green’. The most obvious example is fueling these EVs. Charging your Tesla overnight is the energy equivalent of having 15 refrigerators running in your kitchen overnight. There are other, less obvious, reasons for promoting the use of EVs: the most practical is that it reduces your ability to travel independently – you can only travel to places that will make charging stations available (currently limited to the most populous areas). And, by the way, where will the additional power to fuel these vehicles come from?  Our energy grid is currently at capacity and has trouble maintaining current demand and it is mostly derived from fossil fuels.

Bear in mind also that the very people who decry the use of fossil fuels almost all fly on private jets for their travel needs. When do you suppose President Obama or Leonardo De Caprio last took a Southwest flight? Remember that flying on a private plane pollutes 5 to 14 times more than commercial jet travel per passenger. Yet these ‘woke’ proponents of ‘green’ policies still preach to us about reducing our energy footprint while they ignore it completely. And by the way, if global warming, the ice caps melting and climate change are going to flood the world’s shorelines, why do they all live on oceanfront properties? But I digress…

Back to ESG. At its core, it is simply another way for our leaders to control things. If it were an honest measure of ‘goodness’ it would excoriate any firm doing business with the nation of China – one of the worst human rights violators on the planet.

While it is only in its nascent stages, ESG is still nothing more than a social credit score applied to businesses. Who makes up these scores? What are the criteria? And how long will it be before employees of companies are scored on their ESG evaluations? How long will it be before we all are tagged with a social credit score?

Electric Cars Are Not “Zero-Emission Vehicles”

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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

While praising California’s decision to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, Governor Gavin Newsom declared that this will require “100% of new car sales in California to be zero-emission vehicles” like “electric cars.” In reality, electric cars emit substantial amounts of pollutants and may be more harmful to the environment than conventional cars.

Toxic Pollution

The notion that electric vehicles are “zero-emission” is rooted in a deceptive narrative that ignores all pollutants which don’t come out of a tailpipe. Assessing the environmental impacts of energy technologies requires measuring all forms of pollution they emit over their entire lives, not a narrow slice of them. To do this, researchers perform “life cycle assessments” or LCAs. As explained by the Environmental Protection Agency, LCAs allow for:

“the estimation of the cumulative environmental impacts resulting from all stages in the product life cycle, often including impacts not considered in more traditional analyses (e.g., raw material extraction, material transportation, ultimate product disposal, etc.). By including the impacts throughout the product life cycle, LCA provides a comprehensive view of the environmental aspects of the product or process and a more accurate picture of the true environmental trade-offs in product and process selection.”

LCAs are subject to multiple levels of uncertainty, but an assessment published by the Journal of Cleaner Production in 2021 shatters the notion that electric cars are cleaner than conventional ones, much less “zero emission.” The LCA found that manufacturing, charging, operating, and disposing of electric vehicles produce more of every major category of pollutants than conventional cars. This includes:

“an increase in fine particulate matter formation (26%), human carcinogenic (20%) and non-carcinogenic toxicity (61%), terrestrial ecotoxicity (31%), freshwater ecotoxicity (39%), and marine ecotoxicity (41%) relative to petrol vehicles.”

Foreshadowing that result, a 2018 report by the European Environment Agency warned that studies on the “human toxicity impacts” of electric vehicles were “limited” and that electric cars “could be responsible for greater negative impacts” than conventional cars.

Similarly, a 2018 article in the journal Environmental Research Letters stated that a failure to account for the “environmental implications” of mining lithium to make batteries for electric cars “would directly counter the intent” of “incentivizing electric vehicle adoption” and “needs to be urgently addressed.”

The 2021 paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production has now addressed this issue, and it shows electric cars emit more toxic pollution than gasoline-powered cars. Yet, politicians who embraced the electric car agenda before comprehensive data was available continue to plow ahead in spite of the facts.

Local Pollution

Regardless of overall toxic emissions, the European Environment Agency points out that electric vehicles “potentially offer local air quality benefits” because pollution from their manufacturing, charging, and disposal is usually emitted away from densely populated areas.

Simply stated, switching to electric cars transfers pollution from urbanites in wealthy nations to poor countries that mine and manufacture their components and to communities with power plants and disposal sites. In the words of the 2021 paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production, this “transfer of environmental burdens” causes “workers and ecosystems in third countries” to be “exposed to higher rates of toxic substances.”

China dominates the global supply chains for green energy components not merely because of cheap labor but because they have lax environmental standards that tolerate the pollution these products create. Thus, China supplies 78% of the world’s solar cells, 80% of the world’s lithium-ion battery chemicals, and 73% of the world’s finished battery cells.

Highlighting the implications of “China’s role in supplying critical minerals for the global energy transition,” a 2022 study by the Brookings Institute found that “continued reliance on China” will “increase the risk that sourcing of critical minerals will cause or contribute to serious social or environmental harms.” It also documents that the U.S. and other wealthy nations have been unwilling to accept these harms on their own soils.

Even if Newsom disregards the health of poor and slave laborers in other nations, electric vehicles are still not “zero-emission” for the people of California. This is because electric vehicles emit pollutants from road, tire, and brake wear, and these forms of pollution are worse in electric vehicles than standard cars. Per a 2016 paper in the journal Atmospheric Environment, “Electric vehicles are 24% heavier than their conventional counterparts,” and this creates more “non-exhaust emissions” like “tire wear, brake wear, road surface wear and resuspension of road dust.”

Greenhouse Gases

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activity, and the 2021 paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production found that electric cars emit 48% less CO2 than gasoline-powered ones. Although this is lower, it is still far from “zero-emission.”

Moreover, a study published by the Ifo Institute of Germany in 2019 found that an electric Tesla Model 3 emits 11% to 28% more CO2 over its lifespan than a diesel Mercedes C220D. Again, LCAs are subject to uncertainty, and no single study is an end-all, but this clearly proves that electric vehicles are far from emission-free.

With no regard for those facts, Gavin Newsom asserts that “California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading plan to achieve 100% zero-emission vehicle sales” that will help “solve this climate crisis.”

Contrary to Newsom’s claim of a “climate crisis,” a wide array of environmental and human welfare measures related to climate change have stayed level or improved for more than three decades. This includes foliage productivity, extinction rates, forest cover, agricultural production, coastal flooding, rainfall and droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, and extreme weather fatalities. These empirical facts refute more than 30 years of failed predictions by global warming alarmists.

Newsom then adds another layer of deception by stating that the plan reduces “dangerous carbon emissions” that “pollute our communities.” This misportrays CO2 as a toxic, dirty substance. In reality, it is an organic, colorless, non-carcinogenic gas that has no toxic effects on humans until concentrations exceed at least 6 times the level in Earth’s atmosphere.

Referring to CO2 as “carbon” is also unscientific. That’s because CO2 is not carbon, just like H2O (water) is not hydrogen. There are more than 10 million different carbon compounds, and calling CO2 “carbon” conflates this relatively innocuous gas with highly noxious substances like carbon monoxide and black carbon.

In summary, there is no reliable evidence that greenhouse gas reductions from electric cars will benefit anyone.

Consequences

Like Newsom, the California Air Resources Board boasts that “100% of new cars and light trucks sold in California will be zero-emission vehicles” by 2035. Assuming Newsom and the board members have at least a rudimentary knowledge of electric cars, calling them “zero-emission vehicles” is a lie.

A Google search reveals that journalists and many others are also using this inherently false phrase.

The harms of this deceit extend well beyond pollution. This is because electric cars are more costly than other options, and that’s why people rarely buy electric cars unless governments subsidize or mandate them. As documented by a 2021 paper in the journal Transport and Environment:

Mass market adoption of electric vehicles will likely require either that governments restrict the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles (as planned in some countries and California) or that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] become cost-competitive with gasoline-powered vehicles of similar size and styling.

Regardless of whether these additional costs are paid by consumers or taxpayers, they make people poorer because these expensive cars ultimately travel fewer miles for every dollar spent.

The same applies to other “clean energy” policies that are prevalent in California. This is a major reason why it has the highest electricity prices in the continental U.S., or 77% more than the national average.

Such policies that increase the costs of living have contributed to making California the state with the highest real poverty rate in the nation.

Despite its “green” agenda, California dominates the American Lung Association’s list of cities with the poorest air quality in America. In fact, the nation’s worst four cities for ozone pollution, the worst five cities for year-round particle pollution, and the worst two cities for short-term particle pollution are all in California.

There are certainly many other factors besides energy policies that have led to those dreadful outcomes in California, but lying to people deprives them of the opportunity to make informed decisions about the pros and cons of these policies.

James D. Agresti is the president of Just Facts, a research and educational institute dedicated to publishing rigorously documented facts about public policy issues.

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This article was published by Just Facts and is reproduced with permission.