Safety:
- Fires in EVs are particularly dangerous because they burn at very high temperatures, usually emit toxic gases and are difficult to extinguish. EV drivers and passengers have been killed in such fires. [Sources: multiple media reports and video recordings of incidents]
- Most instrumentation in EVs is via large touch-screen systems that are not in the driver’s eye line (i.e. they must look sideways). Many are also touchscreens, which means that certain information must be read and then a hand taken off the steering wheel to select some option. These are a serious distraction for drivers. [Source: Advertising for certain EVs]
- Driver stress in EVs is far higher than ICE cars. Will they reach their target recharging station? Will it be operating when they arrive? Maybe they’ll even put themselves in discomfort by turning off the air-conditioning to try to get to the recharge point, but that might threaten their health on very cold or very hot days. [Source: Logical consequence of other points mentioned below.]
- Public recharging stations are often not manned and even a fast charge typically takes around 40 minutes. This situation can put personal safety at risk, especially if recharging late at night. [Source: personal experience provides anecdotal evidence]
- EV owners can have little confidence that their vehicle will be available to respond to an emergency at any time of day even over a relatively short distance. [Source: logical consequence of battery drainage and patterns of recharging.]
- Most EVs can accelerate much faster than ICE cars. This is a threat to the safety of drivers and the public. [Source: data on EV performance]
- The greater acceleration and greater mass mean greater tyre wear. EVs don’t emit CO2 but they cause much greater emission of rubber particulates, which are dangerous to human health. [Source: anecdotal evidence of tyre degradation]
- The greater mass of EVs compared to ICE vehicles means that in a collision between the two types of vehicles, the ICE vehicle is going to suffer more damage, which means an increased safety risk for ICE drivers. [Source: Logical consequence based on physics]
- The cars are very quiet, which poses a problem for the blind or visually impaired who rely on vehicle noise, or more correctly its absence, to indicate when it’s safe to cross a road. [Source: Logical consequence of cars being very quiet.]
- Tests in the USA have shown that conventional guard rails along road sides will not stop an EV because these cars have greater mass than ICE cars and therefore greater momentum. EVs with batteries position very low tend to spear under the guard rail while EVs with higher batteries just push through the rail.
Financial, Fire, Weight, Insurance, and a bunch of other issues for Owners
It’s not the panacea they are leading us to believe. Give me a V-8, a diesel, or better yet, a V-12
Delusions of Adequacy 