THE MORNING RANT: Periodic Update on the EV Follies (10/18/2024)

Hybrids Are a “Bridge” to EVs in the Same Manner that Fried Shrimp Are a Bridge to Bug-Eating

With consumers on both sides of the Atlantic having emphatically rejected electric vehicles (with the notable exception of Tesla’s success as a boutique luxury product), EV dead-enders are now promoting the notion that the popularity of hybrids means that consumers just need a “bridge” to transition from gasoline-powered, internal combustion (“ICE”) cars to fully-electric, plug-in vehicles.

Here are a couple of recent examples:

“Volvo Scraps Plans for All BEV Lineup By 2030, Eyes Hybrids As 'Bridge' To Full-Electrification”

“Volkswagen Building More Plug-In Hybrids as Bridge to EVs”

Enough already. Here’s an analogy. When I eat shrimp instead of grilling a steak, that does not mean that I’m crossing a bridge from beef-eating to bug-eating. It means that shrimp is another attractive protein option for me. Bug-eating will never be an option.

Hybrid vehicles are as much a bridge to full EV adoption as consuming shrimp is a bridge from eating beef to eating bugs.

Not a Parody from Motor Trend: Toyota is Struggling to Catch Up in the EV Market

Toyota was the wisest auto company throughout the electric vehicle bubble, embracing hybrid technology while resisting pressure to pursue the EV folly. Toyota chose wisely. And the propaganda media will never forgive Toyota for rejecting their beloved EVs.

Motor Trend, which was once a fantastic auto-enthusiast magazine, has long since embraced the role of being an eco-leftist propaganda outlet. This article about Toyota “struggling to catch up” to EV competition reads like a parody, but it’s actually serious.

“Toyota Pushes Back EV Production Plans in America” [Motor Trend – 10/03/2024]

The EV market is in constant flux and Toyota has never been ahead of the game, and it's apparently still struggling to catch up.

Oh my. Toyota is only the most successful auto company in the world, with a wildly popular mix of vehicles that dealers cannot keep on their lots, including an extensive lineup of hybrids. Meanwhile other legacy automakers like Volkswagen, Ford, and GM are in crisis mode because of their bad bets on electric vehicles. Motor Trend calls Toyota’s popularity and success ”struggling to catch up.” I’m pretty sure that Toyota never wants to catch up with Ford, GM, and Volkswagen when it comes to EVs.

The automaker has been skeptical about EV adoption, and turned out to be mostly right about its predicted slump in the market, but the world is still moving towards all-electric vehicle adoption and Toyota must still eventually adapt.

Motor Trend is free to dream of a mandatory, all-electric utopia where ICE vehicles are outlawed and Toyota is forcibly compelled to “eventually adapt,” but so long as Toyota can respond to the market, rather than obeying the communist overlords favored by Motor Trend, then Toyota will keep selling the non-EV products that automobile buyers overwhelmingly prefer.

California Cops: EV Police Cruisers “Nearly Unusable”

A few weeks back, I posted an email from a reader nicknamed “Wunderkraut” about the foolishness of using EVs for police cars. (I’m unable to dig up that link, sorry.)

Now comes this story out of California.

“California cops who are trialing Teslas ahead of ban on gas vehicles say they are nearly unusable” [Daily Mail – 10/16/2024]

There is a lengthy list of reasons given why the Tesla police car experiment is a failure, including battles against all the automated features such as auto-pilot and lighting. But again, the most obvious problem is that police cars get banged up and driven hard. Doing pit maneuvers and driving over curbs in a vehicle that has a combustible lithium-ion battery is literally playing with fire.

Several Port of Los Angeles Terminals Shut Down by Massive Lithium-Ion Battery Fire

Speaking of combustible lithium-ion batteries…

“Multiple terminals closed at Port of Los Angeles after lithium battery fire” [Reuters – 9/27/2024]

Operations at Port of Los Angeles suffered disruptions as an overturned tractor trailer carrying a load of lithium batteries ignited a fire near Ocean & Navy Way on Terminal Island on Thursday, leading to the closure of several terminals.

Firefighters will continue to monitor the battery fire through Thursday night and Friday, Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement, adding the fire is expected to last at least another 24-48 hours.

Lithium-ion batteries are proving too volatile to be transported via ship or by truck, and our transportation systems are already facing repeated disruptions due to massive lithium battery fires, despite EVs only having a very small market share. It is unthinkable how many nasty lithium fires we’d be dealing with if EV usage were higher.

Update - Coincidentally, just after I finished uploading today’s post, I received this notification from friend-of-the-blog George MF Washington. I had no recollection of this event in which a bulk shipment of lithium batteries caused an in-flight fire that crashed a 747. In the aftermath of this incident, a prohibition was implemented on such bulk shipments as air cargo.

If you don’t have time to watch the video, this article gives a lengthy but easily readable recap of the event:

“Alone in the Inferno: The Crash of UPS Airlines Flight 6” [Admiral Cloudberg]

Here is a brief snippet.

On the 3rd of September 2010, a UPS Airlines Boeing 747 freighter declared an emergency at 32,000 feet above the Persian Gulf, reporting the outbreak of every cargo pilot’s worst nightmare: a fire on the main deck. As the crew steered their aircraft back toward Dubai, the situation progressively escalated, as smoke filled the cockpit and the flight controls began to fail; and then the captain lost his oxygen supply and collapsed, leaving the first officer alone at the controls of a crippled leviathan.

The cause of the deadly fire would later be traced back to a now-familiar suspect that was not as well known in 2010: the plane’s cargo, consisting of hundreds of kilograms of lithium batteries.

Ich bereue den Kauf eines Elektroautos

We’ve all chased fads that we later regretted, or made a consumer buying decision that we learned from. A lot of car buyers in Germany have apparently bought their last EV.

“Germany suffers ‘spectacular’ 70 percent drop in electric car sales” [The Telegraph – 9/19/2024]

German disillusionment with EVs is real and it’s spectacular.

There are all sorts of reasons being given for why European auto drivers are now turning so emphatically against EVs, but it is really simple - driving an EV is a lot more of a hassle than driving an ICE car. There are so many consumers who did buy an EV but later came to regret it, and they will never buy another EV.

Mass market electric vehicles lost their one and only opportunity to make a good first impression.

Your EV Virtue Signaling is not Your Landlord’s Problem

As I just said, driving an EV provides a lot of hassles, which leads to a lot of regrets.

“I drive an electric car and am moving into a rented property - can I get my landlord to install an EV charger?” [Daily Mail – 8/18/2024]

I owned a rental house for many years. If I still owned it, not only would I refuse to install a charger, but I would also prohibit any electric vehicle from being garaged in the house.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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