Raising alarms
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Energy specialists are raising alarms about various challenges facing electric vehicles, such as cost, driving range, weather impacts, infrastructure limitations, and economic implications.
Electric vehicles
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Despite the growing promotion of electric vehicles by the government and automakers in the United States, these experts highlight the significant hurdles that need to be addressed in order to make widespread adoption feasible.
Bryan Dean Wright
Fox News
Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA operations officer, said that American society has shifted to EVs largely because some people are “just so hellbent on making sure that this transition happens, even if that means wrecking the economy, in terms of electricity, its reliability, the grid, getting brownouts or blackouts or economic wreckage by people who otherwise can’t afford these new vehicles.”
Wealth transfer
Fox News
“That cost is being shouldered by buyers and car companies by raising the price of gas-powered vehicles, [which] is basically just a direct wealth transfer, just paying for EV subsidies and that will grow over time, if we continue to keep this regime in place,” Brent Bennett, a policy director for Life:Powered, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told Fox News.
California
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Wright suggested that California serves as a poignant example of the challenges that the entire nation may encounter. He highlighted the high service costs of approximately $250 per hour for electric vehicles in the state.
Gavin Newsom
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California, led by Governor Gavin Newsom’s strong advocacy for EVs, has set a bold mandate that prohibits the purchase of new gas-powered cars and light trucks by Californians after 2035.
Expenses
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“Some of those expenses are going to come down because you’re going to find manufacturing efficiencies and you’re going to be able to lower the cost of that product,” Wright said.
Gas vehicles
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“But as of this moment, with all the push, it is a wealth transfer from people who have their current gas vehicles to an EV. I don’t know if that’s going to be the case in 10 or 20 years, but what we see in California is because of some of these dirty green policies.”
Tax credit
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Bennett discussed the $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs, which he said “is one small part of the whole equation” when it comes to what the government is doing to subsidize EV production.
Automakers
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“We calculated that if you add on the socialized infrastructure costs, and then in particular add on California’s zero emission vehicle mandate, which adds cost to all of us because the automakers have to pay to produce more EVs in California, and they spread that cost to the whole country, the federal fuel economy regulations alone are subsidizing each EV by about $20,000. Add all this together, and each EV is getting almost $50,000 in subsidies,” he said.
Regulations
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Due to these regulations, the utility bills of numerous Californians have increased, leading to a disproportionate impact on the lower and middle-income households, according to Wright. This trend is expected to persist, further burdening those in the lower and middle socioeconomic brackets.
Middle class
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“The burden of this revolution is it is fundamentally a tax on the working class and on the middle class … a lot of folks struggling in those two worlds and it really is unfair to a lot of the working folks in this country,” he said.
Wright cautioned
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Wright cautioned that sticking to the present course could result in significant economic upheaval in various regions across the country and globally.
Incapable
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He emphasized that the existing infrastructure is incapable of accommodating the demands imposed by these government directives.
Have to adjust
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“At some point we’re going to face this issue of, we don’t have the charging infrastructure, we don’t have enough electricity overnight, we’re going to have to adjust unless we want to crash the global economy,” he said.
Jason Isaac
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Jason Isaac, a senior fellow at Life:Powered, highlighted that electric vehicles (EVs) have been marketed as trendy gadgets, but consumers are reconsidering their choices due to concerns about their reliability.
Range anxiety
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The issues primarily revolve around “range anxiety,” limited charging infrastructure, and the high costs of EVs. Wright elaborated on the complexities faced by EV owners regarding charging and the three different levels of electricity available for EVs.
Charging
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For instance, level one charging involves plugging into a standard wall outlet at home, while level three chargers, the most powerful, are akin to gas station equivalents. Level two chargers can be installed at home but come with installation costs ranging from $2,000 to $4,000, excluding fuel expenses.
Costly
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Wright emphasized that level 3 chargers are costly and require substantial infrastructure, posing challenges in deploying them conveniently across rural America. He also cautioned that even those who charge their EVs at home may encounter steep electricity bills.
Electricity bill
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“You’re plugging it in, but you’ve got an electricity bill, and the cost of that is really going to be dependent on where in the country you are,” he said. “You might have very cheap power with nuclear power or hydropower, or you can have very expensive power with solar and wind.”
Insufficient
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Furthermore, Wright pointed out that individuals who charge their EVs at home often do so during the hours of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., a period when there is insufficient electricity supply, potentially leading to grid failures. Bennett raised concerns about the societal costs of electricity, particularly when an EV charging overnight consumes as much power as three to four average homes.
Simultaneously
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In a scenario where all 80 homes in a neighborhood have EVs and are charging simultaneously, it would be akin to adding four times the number of homes to the neighborhood, surpassing the neighborhood’s electrical capacity.
Supercharging
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“Now imagine, instead of over eight hours, you’re trying to charge in 30 minutes on a fast charger,” he said. “Well, now you’re talking about that EV alone drawing as much power from the grid as a small grocery store. You put four of those together at a Tesla supercharging station, you’re talking as much power as a Walmart, so you have to upgrade your electrical infrastructure, your transmission and distribution infrastructure to support that.”
