Pull the plug!

Climate Cult 58 Comments

As we would do with a 30 year old man living in his parent’s basement who has never had a job, it’s time we acknowledge the EV failure to launch. Maybe, just maybe, there’s still time to pull billions of taxpayers’ money out of the fire.

The Achilles’ heel of vehicle electrification is the lithium-ion battery, an inefficient, costly and vulnerable energy-storage system plagued by issues of weight, energy density, low performance in cold weather and grid adequacy — and now also by skyrocketing prices of the key minerals it requires: lithium, cobalt and nickel.

The electric mobility paradigm needs to be recognized for what it has been: a technical and fiscal flop. It should be shelved before it precipitates a serious meltdown of the automotive industry.

58 Replies to “Pull the plug!”

  1. Believe that article is just an ad for the authors company. He’s not wrong but no one will take him seriously as long as he’s pushing a competing idea.

    1. A worse competing idea, that I’m sure multiple governments are more than willing to “invest” in.

    2. CanuckJack: my thoughts exactly. Most of what he said is true and we’ll said. Someone else has to say it for it to have any effect.

  2. Sounds like its just as safe and effective for a power source as mRNA technology is for a vaccine.

    Full speed ahead, Warp Factor Duh, Mr. Sulu

    1. Aye, Captain. I dinna know about that. I’m waiting for Dilithium crystals and warp drive.

  4. Hell no.
    Proceed with the Central Planning.
    I will have the Robertson Range Extender,or the F.U. for short,ready for market by mandate time..
    Envision a Motorcycle trailer such as the Goldwing crowd use,with a turbo diesel genset,twin chrome pipes and a garish Logo,fitted to tow behind the “Electric Car,with a bypass chip to circumvent the battery protection system,especially the “Do not permit vehicle to move if on charger” bit.
    And when I say “Turbo Diesel” if I could get Screaming Jimmies,I would recommend them.
    We want Loud and obnoxious..safety first,see.
    When our effete elites attempt to rule,a loyal citizen can only obey..to the best of your ability of course..I help you fix that thing,real good.

    1. I like your plan. I was just going to start a rescue towing service for EVs, with a fleet of Sentinel DG8 steam wagons. That way I can roll coal on them quite literally, all the way to the next charging station.

    2. ” …if I could get Screaming Jimmies,I would recommend them.”

      Amen. Few things sweeter than an old Timberjack with a 3-53 or 4-53 General Moaner howling away, up on a mountainside.

      2. Ah Jamie
        You take me back to the days of my misbegotten youth when I used to run a Timberjack 404 line skidder up on Quesnel Lake in BC in the mid seventies. Those old ‘line’ donkeys were tough …and noisy …and the barbs on the chokers were murder on the operator’s hands when they came through your gloves when you were pulling line. The most painful part of that was having to pull your hand back off the wire slivers …and then it throbbed like hell for awhile.

        Not so found memories but a worthwhile experience.

  5. I work in the auto industry at a corporate HQ and the lack of any acknowledgment of the challenges mentioned above is pretty alarming. It’s like everyone’s too afraid to mention the blindingly obvious because of the pervasive culture of corporate wokeness. I send links pointing out all the problems to a couple of my friendly counterparts within the larger corporate umbrella and I barely get a response. Everyone’s got their heads in the sand.

    1. At one point I worked for a large environmental engineering consulting company and the various chemical engineers, who really should have known better, were all in on the global warming kool-aid. I used to drive them nuts by asking them simple questions based in basic thermodynamics about the assumptions in the propaganda. You’re chemical engineers, right, surely you can explain this apparent contradiction?

      One of them tried to convince me by pointing out the sheer amount of business the company did on “climate change” consulting. I asked him, point blank, what would happen if an eccentric but very wealthy Irishman asked the CEO for a million-dollar environmental impact study of the leprechauns in his flower garden. Would the CEO say “there’s no such thing as leprechauns, sir, I can’t take your money” or would he do the study and say “results inconclusive, more study needed”?

      You can probably imagine the answer I got.

  6. The government bet everything on the green economy thinking the house, that would be them, never loses. They aren’t about to back down because the only thing at stake for them is money earned by a bunch of assh*le taxpayers bet against one of the very cornerstones of modern liberalism, climate change.
    Every government in history that has attempted to control its economy to this degree has failed miserably and permanently impoverished its citizens.
    So there’s no turning back. We’re going to keep reelecting these people until they drive us right into the dirt for a theory. When people ask how it happened the answer will be something like, ” It couldn’t be helped. We tried but were held back by the people who opposed us. “.
    Then we’ll walk to the polling station because very few people will own cars anymore, and we’ll vote Liberal once again.

  8. “In particular, we need to look at alternate non-electric powertrain technologies (including the kind my company is currently developing for the bus market: a hybrid pneumatic powertrain, in which a traditional engine, powered by renewable natural gas or hydrogen, compresses air to power a pneumatic motor).”

    How about no? If you think you can make that work, do it with your own money, not ours.

    EV vehicles are a niche market, and absent government idiocy, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

    1. Compressed air engines aren’t new, they’re worse efficiency than just burning the gasoline to power the driveshaft, and they also tend to perform terribly in cold weather. What with that ideal gas law and eveything.

      1. Compressing air is about the most inefficient way of transmitting power ever invented. But the compressor is relatively cheap and the tools or motor is too, so sometimes it’s an OK solution. But think about 15% efficiency.

  9. Time for that Business Development Grant,
    Step 1 A business creating Bio Diesel from Mammal fat.
    For we are being hit with a carbon tax,to encourage us to use nonexistent alternative fuels..

    Step 2 Harvesting civil servants for the fat.
    For if the first stage works,it will be a modern miracle,no more can we describe our rulers and regulators as useless …Their blubber may have value..

  10. Pull the plug!

    Your timing on this title is perfection…

    My new second video…

    Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency (DEDC)
    44th Parliament, 1st Session

    Meeting 11

    Tuesday, June 21, 2022, 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
    Room 025-B, West Block
    Televised

    6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

    Ontario Provincial Police

    • Thomas Carrique, Commissioner
    • Chris Harkins, Deputy CommissionerAmended
    • Carson Pardy, Chief SuperintendentAmended

    8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

    As an individual

    • Peter Sloly, Chief of Police (Retired), Ottawa Police Service

    Shame Them All

    https://rumble.com/v19bn97-shame-them-all.html

  11. The writer of that column is a certified moron. In order to achieve certification you have to score at least 80 moron points.

    10 points: the lithium-ion battery is “inefficient”. Relative to what? The combustion engine?
    10 points: Tesla closed down 41.9% year-to-date. Ford opened the year at $21.77 and is trading at $11.46, down 47% – worse than Tesla. So … internal combustion engines are dead?
    10 points: EV sales are 2.5% of global sales. They were 3 years ago. They are up to 9%.
    10 points: Challenges of re-charging. This is not due to lithium-ion batteries. The infrastructure will grow over time.
    10 points: mining-induced environmental damage. Everything we mine has environmental concerns including oil & gas. Try and stop mining.
    10 points: children armed with chisels toiling under oppressive conditions. This has nothing to do with lithium. Cobalt yes. So stop buying cobalt from the Congo. And pay a fair price.
    10 points: we need to look at alternate non-electric powertrain technologies. Wait a minute, isn’t that your company? Is this a poorly disguised ad for your product?
    10 points: renewable natural gas. Doesn’t exist.
    10 points: hydrogen fuel. And that is free and widely available.
    10 points: without new energy-storage innovations. Go and build it. If it’s better than lithium-ion you will become a billionaire.
    10 points: why isn’t Air Lab Inc. trading at the same market cap as Tesla?

    That’s 110 moron points. A good score.

    1. “Tesla closed down 41.9% year-to-date. Ford opened the year at $21.77 and is trading at $11.46, down 47% – worse than Tesla. So … internal combustion engines are dead?”
      Totally irrelevant, stock market is plunging as recession looms. I’ll give you that one.

    2. “the lithium-ion battery is “inefficient”. Relative to what? The combustion engine?”
      Yes. Subtract 10 points.

      1. Lithium-ion battery is about 90% efficient. Internal combustion engine about 40% efficient.

        1. The power plant that generates electricity can vary from 40 % to 90 % efficiency. Combined cycle natural gas wih hear recovery to run stems gets close to 90 %. Coad would not be any better than 40 percent as the Rankine cycle only gives 60 % efficiency before subtracting parasitic costs.
          So 90% at the car means nothing.

    3. “EV sales are 2.5% of global sales. They were 3 years ago. They are up to 9%.”
      EV sales at 2.8 percent in 2020 just 2 years ago. So highly unlikely they rose to 9% at the same time their overall sales dropped 25%. Lots more info in that link you apparently didn’t read. Subtract 10 points until you can back your claim.

      “Challenges of re-charging. This is not due to lithium-ion batteries. The infrastructure will grow over time.”
      Those challenges are real NOW! The article is about CURRENT EV sales. Subtract 10 points.

      “mining-induced environmental damage. Everything we mine has environmental concerns including oil & gas. Try and stop mining.”
      True, but the environmental damage from mining lithium and cobalt is much, much worse. Subtract 10 points.

      “children armed with chisels toiling under oppressive conditions. This has nothing to do with lithium. Cobalt yes. So stop buying cobalt from the Congo. And pay a fair price.”
      Lithium-ion BATTERY requires: lithium, COBALT and nickel. So children armed with chisels toiling under oppressive conditions applies. Subtract 10 points.
      Cobalt is bought on the global marketplace. (Check out the commodities trade.) Price is determined when buyer and seller agree. It seems you missed the part about ” skyrocketing prices of the key minerals it requires: lithium, cobalt and nickel.” Subtract another 10.

      “we need to look at alternate non-electric powertrain technologies. Wait a minute, isn’t that your company? Is this a poorly disguised ad for your product?”
      Well yes he did say it was his product. And not a very good concept as far as I can determine. You can keep that one.

      “renewable natural gas. Doesn’t exist.”
      Doesn’t exist in that article. Did I somehow miss it when reading it twice? Subtract 10 points.

      “hydrogen fuel. And that is free and widely available.”
      Oil, coal and N. gas are free and widely available too. It’s the extraction and processing and getting it to market that costs, and getting hydrogen to market costs more. Moreover, it takes more energy to make H2 than in contains. Subtract 10 points.

      “without new energy-storage innovations. Go and build it. If it’s better than lithium-ion you will become a billionaire.”
      The key word here is “innovations”, meaning it can’t yet be done. You can’t “go ahead and build” what can’t be done. Subtract 10 points.

      “why isn’t Air Lab Inc. trading at the same market cap as Tesla?”
      What has this to do with his comments on EVs? Subtract 10 points.

      So realistically, that’s 10 moron points. It is a good score.

      You however, for giving him unearned moron points, have earned a score of 100 moron points for yourself. Not such a good score.

      I would have put it all on one post but it just wouldn’t post.

      1. “highly unlikely they [EVs] rose to 9%.

        http://www.ev-volumes.com

        Worldwide sales of EVs were 8.3% in 2021. They are currently over 9% this year and will exceed 10% in 2022. Sales y/y were up a modest 108%.

        Even in USA sales are now almost 5% of all new car sales. The main reason the US lags is their preference for heavy trucks as passenger vehicles.

        I get my 10 points back.

      2. I started doing the same thing last night but stopped when I realized that Steve might be calling the author a moron using the author’s own beliefs. On first read, I agreed with and mentioned most of your points. +1.

      3. The part about lithium pollution and children mining cobalt is misdirection. In certain parts of the world (including China) mining practices are terrible. I have been to mines in Africa and China and I have seen first hand the conditions. This is not related to cobalt and not even mining. Same happens in agriculture. It is simple misdirection to say EVs need cobalt, cobalt is chiseled out by children, therefore EVs are bad. No. Artisanal mining is a family enterprise in the DRC (Congo). These children need to be put in a decent school. Fix that problem. And not all the cobalt from DRC is mined by children. Again, a very easy thing to stop. Just don’t buy their product.

      4. When I said hydrogen is free I was being sarcastic. Not only is it not free, it is energy intensive to extract. So the author wants to replace one method of inefficient energy (battery technology – his words) for another method (hydrogen extraction). Only he wants the government to subsidize his idea.

      5. renewable natural gas “doesn’t exist in that article. Did I miss something”.
        Yes, you missed the second last paragraph, last sentence.

        “We are still in the early stages of rolling out this profound miscalculation. That means there is still time to recalibrate and shift away from the false hope of electric mobility foisted on us by government mandates. This is not to say we don’t need effective, efficient, economical and readily deployable technologies to build a sustainable low-carbon future for the ground-mobility sector. In particular, we need to look at alternate non-electric powertrain technologies (including the kind my company is currently developing for the bus market: a hybrid pneumatic powertrain, in which a traditional engine, powered by renewable natural gas or hydrogen, compresses air to power a pneumatic motor).”

        I always chuckle when I read “renewable natural gas”. In Europe they call it what it is “bio-methane”. And there is nothing renewable about it.

      6. “without new energy-storage innovations. Go and build it. If it’s better than lithium-ion you will become a billionaire.”
        The key word here is “innovations”, meaning it can’t yet be done. You can’t “go ahead and build” what can’t be done. Subtract 10 points.

        You are totally wrong. You can go ahead and build what can’t be done. Discover the technology, prove the concept and introduce it to the mass market.

        Also notice the misdirection again by the author. He is not advocating energy-storage. He is advocating transportation using hydrogen instead of battery technology. But he faces the same problem the EV market will face. Where do you get all the energy (to charge the battery, to make the compressed hydrogen)? This is the real problem. Because without fossil fuel we are left only with nuclear, unless you are secretly developing a new power source.

      7. Finally …

        “why isn’t Air Lab Inc. trading at the same market cap as Tesla?”
        What has this to do with his comments on EVs? Subtract 10 points.

        It has everything to do with the article. If his idea was any good we would be criticizing his dumb billionaire ideas. Instead he toils away hoping for government subsidies as Elon plans his trip to Mars.

    2. Honda pulled the plug on their H2 Clarity last year largely due to a lack of participation in promoting filling stations.
      This project lasted about 20 years without government support proving it was and is viable without trillions in taxpayer support.

  13. Me, I think Elon Musk, et al, are really on to something, just like the Segway guys was.

    If he, the Segway guy, were to take a Segway, put one wheel behind the other instead of beside, throw a saddle in the middle and handlebars in front, dang, the customers would beat a path to his door, Harley!

    Same with the EVs; park a 15-40 horse diesel under the hood tied to a generator, throw DC electric motors on each wheel (Doing away with differentials, transmissions, clutches, etc.) , four, maybe six old fashioned lead acid batteries, dynamic (Power, battery recharging.) breaking, constant, optimal, speed diesel, I’d buy one in a Canadian minute (Slower than a New York minute, faster than an Alaskan one!

    & if something like fuel cells have the many many, problems worked out, said unit could replace the diesel/generator without modification.

    1. We’ve been doing that for many years in mining. Locomotive engine in the haul trucks makes electricity, wheel motors are electric to push the truck forwards/backwards.

  14. if, IF we are doomed to live in thin strips on the shores of bodies of water because we have a world resembling the outback, this battery insanity is merely an alternate faster way to technological, economic, and heck, throw in social, decrepitness, ya pays yer money and takes yer choice.
    people dont live forever, why should species or a planet.
    pass the weed man. or whatever is your pacifier.

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    Starting in late 2021 Lucky Charms food poisoning reports started to trend on iwaspoisoned.com. Now there are reports of over 7,300 sick. and the FDA has initiated an investigation. We recommend anyone who fell ill after eating Lucky Charms, to report it, and to keep left over product for testing. We will communicate procedures for testing to everyone who reports their case.

  17. The author is a worthless shill.

    EVs are great in some climates all year round, but can have seasonal issues in cold climates.

    The Lithium Ion battery is a good technology which will eventually be replaced by better battery technologies.
    Lithium, cobalt, and nickel are not entirely difficult to find, mine, and process, or to recycle. It does take energy to do this. Increase energy production. Build nuclear plants and electrical distribution infrastructure. Drive energy costs to extremely low cost and enable industry to mine the necessary materials and reduce the cost of everything, including new and growing technology.

    The Greens and Leftists hate energy because it improves peoples’ lives and increases their liberty. They want to limit energy to maintain control over the people.

  18. The universal assumption is that Canada must remain a land of mandatory car dependency, hostage to the fiasco of our suburban infrastructure.

  19. Their ultimate goal is for the common folk to have NO cars. They will only be available to the elite.

  21. As a regular SDA reader, I agree with most of the main points of the article, even with the author’s conflict of interest (which, to be fair, he did not conceal). I hope I won’t get kicked off the site for admitting that I have a plug-in hybrid Hyundai on order. (TLDR: the highway driving assist features that I wanted are only available in the hybrid models of the Hyundai Tucson, and the plug-in was only $2500 more than the regular hybrid, and I like driving vehicles that are a bit unusual; definitely didn’t choose it to impress Justin Trudeau.)

    But my car is on order (ordered November 2021, projected build date November 2022), not in my garage, and my saleswoman tells me that the wait for hybrids and electrics ordered today is now projected to be two years. The chip shortage is not to blame, since the wait for non-electrified Hyundais is far shorter; the problem is the availability of the batteries. This is only going to get worse. The push to electrify the entire fleet of motor vehicles is neither desirable nor achievable.

    1. It is ok to criticize EVs and it’s ok to buy them. I did not like the fact that the author concealed his self interest until the very end of his article. He did not address the shortcomings of hydrogen power – which is why it isn’t mainstream despite the fact that the hydrogen car was invented in 1807.

      There are huge problems with EV technology, the main one being the electricity grids are not ready to charge all the vehicles that will be produced. A second problem is winter driving and range restrictions. A third is they are making the same mistake with EVs that they made with ICE vehicles – letting people commute in 6,000 lb trucks. This will place an enormous strain on our energy supply, especially if we are to abandon oil & gas (which I think is impossible).

      To criticize the lithium-ion battery (which is an amazing and efficient technology) in a thinly disguised effort to promote your own technology is wrong. He did not address battery efficiency other than to say it is inefficient (I disagree). He did not address where hydrogen comes from and at what cost (is it just sitting there in the air for free and we’re not using it?). He uses mining practices in 3rd world countries as an excuse not to use a product. If we followed this route we would be living in caves and hunting with sticks. If you don’t like mining practices in the Congo then don’t buy products made in China. It is that simple. Grab your smart phone, your ipad, your laptop, your portable drill and you’re grabbing a lithium-ion battery. Research is being done to eliminate cobalt in lithium-ion batteries.

      https://insights.globalspec.com/article/13479/oak-ridge-licenses-tech-to-take-the-cobalt-out-of-li-ion-batteries

      Once cobalt is gone, I’m sure there will be another whipping boy to emerge.

  22. The article doesn’t mention fires . . . GM has advised Bolt owners to park 50 ft away from other cars &/or buildings. That must really suck after paying for underground parking . . .

  23. “It should be shelved before it precipitates a serious meltdown of the automotive industry.”

    the meltdown is the feature not a bug.

    Forest though the trees people. Keep people stationary and not moving is the goal.

  24. It’s my understanding that EVs make up over 50% of vehicle sales in Norway. Norway is a Northern country.

  25. It was 20 degrees here yesterday, and the temp dropped to 11 last night. Mo wind. So tornados. No hurricanes. Nice rain tto help the crop grow.
    Is there any empirical proof at all that the earth is warming? O, sorry, that the climate is changing? Of course there is, there used to 1500 metres of ice over top of this spot thousands of years ago. And at least four or five times overall.
    But the arctic ice cap is at its highest point in 30 years and we still get snow every winter.
    We are inventing solutions to nonexistent problems.

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