The Evidence Is Clear: Masks Don’t Do Anything… – neither did the jab or social distancing. It was just controlling the population. The Germans did shit like that in the 30’s and everyone obeyed like sheep. They could have just taken vitamin D3 and ivermectin and be protected for a few cents.
Ignoring EV Pollution for Fake Climate Crisis – The amount of fossil fuel it takes to make an EV, not to mention the extra wear and tear on the roads, combined with the disposal of wind turbines and EV batteries makes them less climate friendly than a diesel. It’s about a war on C02 and money laundering. Look at the drop off of EV sales when they take away the government subsidy.
Europe’s Energy Transition Destroyed its Economy – “Germany now has the highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world, while the U.K. has the highest industrial electricity rates, according to a basket of 28 major economies analyzed by the International Energy Agency. Italy isn’t far behind. Average electricity prices for heavy industries in the European Union remain roughly twice those in the U.S. and 50% above China.”
Note that they all came in on private jets and have the carbon footprint of a small country. They took out 100’s of thousands of trees in the Amazon forest to attend. COP30, thy name is Hypocrisy
Muslim and Migrant Fatigue – We are witnessing a Mexicanization of France,” Sanchet said, by which he meant significant parts of the country are falling under the de facto control of drug gangs and cartels.
Petition Seeks to Swap Bad Bunny for George Strait at Super Bowl – so many good songs…You know me better than that, Clear Blue Sky, Amarillo By Morning, and more. I usually put the halftime show on hold the last few years. I can’t remember a really good one. If it’s Bad Bunny, I’ll go from 2nd to 3rd quarter while I miss all of the halftime show.
Iran Pivots to Trans Surgery Tourism – That’s like pork at half price in Iran; it just doesn’t make sense. Don’t they throw these people off the roofs for being infidels?
Disney Jacks Up Its Prices on Tickets and Extras — Fed Up Americans REACT – I grew up next to Disney. It ruined our town and our lives. It’s not that great and certainly not worth the money. It’s also not the happiest place on earth as they claim. It’s hot, (used to have) long lines, expensive and not worth it. Occasionally, there is a Waffle House type fight. That’s the best attraction left.
The Koenigsegg Gemera boasts 2,300 horsepower (hp), making it the most powerful car of 2025—remarkably, it’s also a four-seater.
Extreme power doesn’t always correlate with extreme price tags, as shown by the Lucid Air Sapphire which delivers 1,234 hp at a “bargain” price of $251,000.
From hybrid hypercars to high-output EVs, the amount of horsepower that today’s cars can generate is truly impressive.
In this infographic, we rank the 20 most powerful cars of 2025, spanning gasoline, hybrid, and fully electric powertrains.
Data & Discussion
The data for this ranking comes from Motor1. It details the horsepower, pricing, and origins of the most extreme production vehicles available in 2025.
While price tags often run into the millions, some surprising entries challenge the notion that power always comes with exclusivity.
Earlier this year, the usual suspects were putting out horror scenarios of a summer of heat and drought across Europe in 2025. The most extreme model runs, with temperatures soaring to 45°C, were presented as serious forecasts and as being worrying evidence of runaway climate change.
But now the opposite has occurred and the fear-mongers are now either quiet or simply distorting the facts.
Especially in Central Europe, like across Germany, the weather has turned cool and rainy.
Germany’s Das Wetter.com here recently has since warned of 30 com of snowfall in the Alps – in July!:
Anyone who thought the last few weeks had been cool and changeable should dress warmly. Because from Monday, temperatures across Germany will continue to plummet. This is due to a wave of cold Arctic air rushing in from the far north. Highs of under 20 degrees will then be the reality in many places – in July!”
Heavy snow in the Alps in July
In his article, meteorologist Johannes Habermehl then adds that the snow line in the Alps will be dropping “to just 2500 meters – in some places even lower”, with some forecasting “up to 30 centimetres of fresh snow” at higher altitudes.
Lowest Six-Month Human Death Toll From Bad Weather Since Records Began
Something rather odd is happening to the weather. Millions, nay billions, are on the move fleeing droughts, floods, wildfires, runaway temperatures, rising sea levels (see any mainstream media page climate page to fill in rest of sentence). Armageddon will only be put on pause when hard-Left elites take control of the climate and corral us all into their fantasy world of Net Zero. But hold on a minute – news just in. The first half of 2025 has seen the smallest number of deaths related to extreme weather since records began. And more weird weather news – despite boiling seas, all four northern hemisphere ocean basins in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific are running below average on accumulated cyclone energy. The North Atlantic has seen very little activity with the ACE energy measurement from January 1st to July 21st running at only 41% of the 1991-2020 average.
The cyclone news is natural variation of course, but don’t let on to climate fanatics. The news on deaths from extreme weather is not. It is a long-term trend that has seen weather fatalities plunge by over 99% during the last 100 years. As hydrocarbon use pulls billions out of grinding poverty, so fortunate humans can use the extra wealth to protect themselves against all that Nature throws at life on Earth.
So for people I had to work with like Tom Raftery, Tim O’Reilly and James Governor, the gig is up and so are the lies, but go on believing your religion.
And this gem:
By the numbers the scam is almost comical: 384 individual charging ports, $7.5 billion burned, $19.5 million per plug. That’s enough to buy every Tesla owner in America a home charger—twice—yet all taxpayers got was a handful of glorified parking spots.
WHO POCKETED THE CASH? • EVgo, ChargePoint, and Electrify America—all heavy Democratic donors—walked away with the biggest CFI grants. • The Greenlining Institute, NAACP Climate Initiative, and West Harlem Environmental Action were hired as “equity consultants” at $1,200 an hour to ensure 40 % of funds flowed to “underserved communities” per Biden’s 2021 “Justice40” diktat. • BlueGreen Alliance (a coalition of the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers) lobbied for set-asides that require every single station to use union-only labor—driving costs up another 30 %. • BlackRock’s Climate Finance Partnership skimmed management fees on green bonds floated to finance the program.
Using the 2022 “Inflation Reduction Act” as cover for the progressive “Green New Deal,” the Biden administration funded a plan that aimed to eliminate gasoline-powered delivery trucks and deploy tens of thousands of battery-electric mail trucks by 2028.
And, like so many initiatives linked to Biden, it ended in complete failure. Republicans in Congress are working to claw-back the remaining monies.
The nearly $10 billion project — which called for more than 35,000 battery-powered US Postal Service (USPS) vehicles to be completed by September 2028 — was funded in part by $3 billion in funding from former President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
As of this month, the project is well behind schedule despite taxpayers forking over $1.7 billion — prompting Capitol Hill Republicans to try to rescind the remaining nearly $1.3 billion earmarked from the IRA.
“Biden’s multi-billion-dollar EV fleet for the USPS is lost in the mail and more than $1 billion is postmarked to order more,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told The Post.
“I am working to cancel the order and return the money to the sender, the American people. The rescissions package is a great start, but Congress must keep its foot on the pedal and make DOGE a lifestyle by stamping out waste like this on a regular basis.”
When kicking off the project that was supposed to generate a fleet of over 60,000 electric delivery trucks, one Biden climate advisor described it as “the Biden climate strategy on wheels.”
The post office said it is spending nearly $10 billion to electrify its aging fleet, including installing modern charging infrastructure at hundreds of postal facilities nationwide and purchasing at least 66,000 electric delivery trucks in the next five years. The spending includes $3 billion in funding approved under a landmark climate and health policy adopted by Congress last year.
The hoity-toity bought EV’s mostly to show what good Social Justice Warriors they are. As a novelty, they are impressive, but it wears off.
What doesn’t wear off is the sound of a real engine. In this case it’s a Hemi. It’s big and bad and what people want.
Yes, over 10,000 orders for Hemi V8-equipped pickups were received after the announcement in June – and that was only in the initial 24 hours. That’s a significant number when you consider that Ram has sold an average of 17,828 light-duty pickups per month in the second quarter of 2025.
“We continue to see total sales growth for Jeep and Ram brands, with Ram fueled by sales of the Ram 1500,” said Jeff Kommor, head of U.S. sales. “We plan to build on that success in the second half of the year. We’ve already seen consumer interest spurred by the return of the Hemi V8, with the brand receiving over 10,000 orders in the first 24 hours of the June announcement.”
Tim Kuniskis, CEO of Ram, admitted in June that the company “screwed up” when it discontinued the Hemi V8, and has resolved to give its customers the choice to select the powertrain they want.
It’s been less than a year since the Jaguar automotive brand introduced what many — including this publication, I must note — called the “worst car ad ever.” And, while “go woke, go broke” isn’t a new phenomenon, Jaguar has taken it to previously unseen lows.
Now, a little over eight months since the ad was introduced — famously featuring what apparently was a gaggle of garishly dressed nonbinary flibbertigibbets and not a car to be seen — the marque is basically fulfilling the spot’s car-free promise.
The brand’s sales are down 97.5 percent (not an errant decimal point there), the corporate overlords behind it might be splitting with the geniuses behind the rebrand, and there’s no cars anywhere in the near future for a make that wants to go upmarket but doesn’t have the products or the cachet to do so.
Just in case you somehow missed it, I didn’t, and misery loves company. Thus, please sit through what appears to be an episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” held in a post-apocalyptic fallout bunker:
General Motors has abandoned a plan to pump $300 million into electric-vehicle motor production at its upstate New York plant and will instead invest $888 million to make the latest V-8 engines https://t.co/A2yg4NWRow
I find it disgusting and hypocritical that liberal activists and troublemakers are now damaging or destroying Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations across the nation. Of course, they are doing it because Elon Musk has signed on to help President Donald Trump eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal government, which I believe is a good thing for all of us.
In another reminder that “liberalism is a mental disorder” that has no age limits, an Idaho senior citizen has been charged with felony battery after mowing down a pro-Trump counter-protester at an anti-Elon Musk protest.
Christopher Talbot, 70, made “an obscene gesture” at a 49-year-old victim before hitting him with his car on Saturday, the Meridian Police Department said in a statement, per the Idaho Statesman.
“Reports indicate the victim had been driving a truck with pro-Trump flags and had just parked and exited his vehicle when Talbot struck him with his car,” police said.
“The victim drove himself to a local hospital, where he was treated and released for non-life-threatening injuries.”
At the time, around 30 left-wing agitators had gathered at an Idaho Tesla dealership to protest Musk. Meanwhile, 200 “counterprotesters” arrived to support Musk.
Talbot was arrested, charged with aggravated battery with use of a deadly weapon or instrument, and booked at a county jail.
“The Meridian Police Department reminds people to respect everyone’s right to protest and express their 1st Amendment Rights without resorting to violence,” police said.
Ram truck fans got exciting news two weeks ago when a dealer in Wisconsin leaked details of an internal Stellantis presentation confirming the return of the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 in the Ram 1500, which for the 2025 model year had gone six-cylinder-only. A new report claims other Hemis, including the 6.4-liter “392” and supercharged 6.2-liter “Hellcat” V-8s are also coming available again after a year off, and they’re not headed only to Ram trucks but also the new Dodge Charger, which launched this year in all-electric Daytona guise but with six-cylinder Sixpack models to follow.
(Okay, for sticklers, we should point out that the non-392 6.4-liter V-8 has remained in production for Ram HD models while other variants were discontinued for the 2025 model year.)
According to anonymous sources speaking with MoparInsiders, Hemi production will restart in August at the Dundee Engine Plant in Michigan, and it won’t be limited to the 5.7-liter V-8 as previously reported. If the sources are correct, the plant will build all Hemi variants, including the 392 and Hellcat engines. Whether that includes all variants of the Hellcat remains to be seen.
A separate report from the same outlet published a day later claims Dodge engineers are hard at work fitting the Hemi V-8 under the hood of the new Charger, which controversially dropped all eight-cylinder engines for this new generation, much like the Ram 1500. We reported back in 2022 this would happen based on information from our own sources, but Dodge denied that report and seemed to be committed to a Hemi-less muscle car future. The new report suggests the V-8 Charger will come to market some time next year, following the EV model already available and the Sixpack inline-six models coming this summer.
The initial report goes on to say the engines will likely be carryover designs, but that new enhancements could be in the cards. It also broached the possibility of a new Hemi variant with even greater displacement than the 6.4-liter engine already found in the Ram HD.
Reached for comment, a Ram spokesperson called the report “speculation.” Stellantis has not officially confirmed the Hemi is returning to production, only that the truck-specific 6.4-liter V-8 would remain in production.
According to the internal email leaked earlier this month, both the 5.7-liter and 6.4-liter V-8s will be offered in Ram 1500 models. Previously, only the 5.7 was offered in 1500s while the 6.4 was reserved for HD models, so this could be more than just a reversal, Ram may be going all-in on V-8s in an effort to boost flagging sales with sportier light-duty trucks. Recently returned Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis previously told MotorTrend two months ago he wasn’t sure the removal of the Hemi was to blame for sluggish sales and would need time to analyze the problem. Recent reports seem to indicate Kuniskis has come to that conclusion and may be working to rectify it.
Amazon closed out 2024 with more than 20,000 electric delivery vans manufactured by Rivian in its fleet nationwide. The e-commerce giant highlights on its website that the electric vans are part of its “urgent” climate change initiative to “remove carbon emissions from transportation systems.”
However, Amazon faces mounting criticism for gaslighting the public about its net zero goals and actual operational fleet practices.
Take, for instance, Amazon’s website. Within the Sustainability section, the company laid out its approach to fight so-called global warming: “To reach this target, we’re also expanding the use of zero-emission transportation such as electric delivery vans, cargo e-bikes, and on-foot deliveries, and we engage in industry initiatives to remove carbon emissions from transportation systems like ocean shipping, aviation, and trucking. We’re also using innovative construction techniques and building materials to make our fulfillment centers, data centers, offices, and physical retail locations more sustainable.”
In early 2022, Porsche said electric vehicles would account for more than 80% of total annual sales by the decade’s end. That goal is still in place, although the company added an asterisk next to 2030, saying it will depend on how customers react to EVs. In a Q&A session with the press during the conference call pretraining to Q3 2024 sales, the German brand admitted things aren’t going as planned.
Chief Financial Officer Lutz Meschke said the situation in China is “challenging” for Porsche and all the European luxury brands. In the United States and Europe, Porsche sees a “slowdown in the BEV transition and the customer demand is not satisfying overall.” He mentioned that “a lot of customers in the premium/luxury segment are looking in the direction of combustion engine cars. There’s a clear trend in this direction.”
A recent report in the Daily Mail shows that while electric vehicle owners may virtue-signal by crowing about their green credentials, especially wealthy elites and celebrities, their carbon dioxide footprints are larger than those of most average folks who still drive vehicles that use gasoline and diesel for fuel. The Daily Mail reports:
Researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, found that on average EV drivers actually have a bigger carbon footprint than drivers who own petrol or diesel cars.
While their cars might cut down on emissions, the researchers say that EV owners’ glitzier lifestyles mean they contribute more to climate change overall.
The average EV owner churns out half a tonne more CO2 per year with owners of the sportiest models producing almost two tonnes more pollution.
The researchers surveyed almost 4,000 Finnish people about their car ownership, background and lifestyle.
The participants also provided answers about their housing, transport, and purchasing habits to estimate their carbon footprint.
Overall, someone who owned an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) which runs on petrol or diesel created 8.05 tonnes of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gases per year.
Considering that environmental concerns are a major reason for purchasing an electric vehicle you might expect EV owners’ emissions to be lower.
However, the average EV driver actually has a slightly larger carbon footprint than those who opt for cars powered by fossil fuels, producing 8.66 tonnes of emissions per year.
Back in 2022, I reported that Toyota Motor chief Akio Toyoda remains skeptical of moving to only producing electric vehicles (EVs). Toyoda also indicated that most people who work in the auto industry agree with him.
“People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority,” Toyoda said. “That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.”
BMW wants Europe to relax its plan to ban new petrol and diesel-powered cars from 2035 onward, in an effort to reduce the region’s reliance on batteries from China. While many automakers have fully embraced electrification, BMW is opting for a more diversified strategy.
In addition to battery electric vehicles (BEVs), the company is investing in alternative technologies such as e-fuels and hydrogen fuel cells, betting that the future of mobility won’t be driven by batteries alone.
They just want to force their climate nonsense on us when in fact it’s a control issue by the Climate wienees. They tried making us act like sheep during Covid and we’re not going to do it again. This level of technology of battery-powered cars is not the answer, especially when they can turn them off for social non-compliance.
The electric vehicle (EV) is heralded as a cornerstone of the fight against climate change, with promises of a cleaner, greener future. As recently as July, the Biden-Harris administration announced billions of dollars of government support for EV manufacturing.
However, a growing concern lies beneath the shiny surface of electric cars and bikes: the safety risks of lithium-ion batteries, particularly their propensity to catch fire.
The rosy image of EVs as environmental saviors doesn’t align with their increasing reputation as flammable hazards.
Lithium batteries are designed to store a significant amount of energy in a compact space, which increases not only their efficiency but also their risk profile. When these batteries overheat, short-circuit or suffer physical damage, they can ignite and burn with alarming intensity.
New York is particularly notorious for the large number of E-bike fires. Entire shipments of cars on cargo ships have been burnt up in the middle of the ocean due to fires from EV batteries.
Recently, containers holding 33,000 pounds of lithium batteries at Canada’s port of Montreal caught fire, prompting city authorities to warn residents to remain indoors. The fire, which occurred around 2:45 p.m. on September 23, was not extinguished until 3 a.m. the next day!
“Due to the amount of energy that these batteries store, it took us quite a while to extinguish the fire,” said the fire department chief.
The moonbats at Phys.org had almost caught up to Scientific American when it comes to subordinating science to wokeness. Then they went and admitted that EV owners sin against their own godless religion by having larger carbon footprints:
A pair of psychologists and an economist at the University of Turku, in Finland, have found that because the average electric vehicle (EV) owner is wealthier than the average person, they still have a bigger than average carbon footprint.
So it is not transportation that offends the weather but wealth. Don’t worry, leftist politicians have a cure for that.
Despite EV owners being wealthy enough to waste money on expensive green posturing, their playthings are heavily subsidized by those of us who do not. EV manufacturers naturally raise their prices to match the subsidies.
It was a loser who tried to force a bad solution that didn’t work on people who didn’t want them. Good riddance.
The House passed a bill Friday that would overturn the Biden-Harris administration’s de facto electric vehicle mandate if it becomes law.
By a 215-191 vote, the House approved H.J. Res. 136, a bill that would vacate the Environmental Protection Agency’s tailpipe emissions standards for light-duty vehicles if it passes the Senate and is signed into law by President Joe Biden. Eight House Democrats crossed the aisle to side with Republicans in favoring the bill, while one GOP lawmaker—Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick—voted against the legislation.
First, we have this: EV Dealers Are So Desperate to Offload Stock That They’re Offering Lease Deals For $20 a Month.
How soft is the new EV car market? Some EV vehicles have been on their lots for so long that they’re offering lease terms so generous, they may as well be giving them away.
A Kia dealer in Virginia only gets a couple of inquiries a month for EVs. The price tag of new vehicles scares them off, says Finance Director Ramon Nawabi. He’s got a few EV 6 SUVs that have been on the lot for six months that Kia is now offering discounted leases on top of the $7,500 EV tax credit “just to move the car,” he says. “In a sense, we’re giving them away.”
That $7500 tax credit helped dealers sell a million EVs in 2022. However, the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act severely limited how that $7500 tax credit could be applied. There are now price caps for EVs ($80,000 for SUVs and trucks; $55,000 for cars), and the batteries must be American-made. Also, the vehicles must be assembled in the U.S. There’s also a cap on the net income of the potential buyer.
“The EU is in a crisis caused by low consumer demand for EVs and unfair competition from third country EV manufacturers, meaning that the EU industry will not be able to meet these reduction targets. EU industry will have little choice but to significantly cut production, which threatens millions of jobs in the EU, harms consumers, and adversely impacts the EU’s competitiveness and economic security.”
The quote above is an excerpt from a draft European Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (EAMA) document made public this week in a story by Bloomberg. The report was prepared by EAMA in preparation for formally requesting a 2-year delay in EU emissions goals set to take effect in 2025. EU EV makers say they will not be able to meet the idiotic mandate set by the EU’s authoritarian central planners, citing low consumer desire to buy the damn things and “unfair” competition from China.
It’s a reality that should come as no real surprise to anyone, especially since critics of the EU’s central planning literally predicted this very outcome a thousand times.
It’s because people bought them because there was a subsidy. Then they found out that the current technology of an EV is flashy, but not good. It sucks in hot or cold weather and takes too long to charge.
It’s not the panacea that was promised, just another government program, nee mandate that is a failure.
There is not enough electricity nor the grid to support people driving EV’s. They are 3-5 iterations of technology away from being efficient and desirable. They are wealthy peoples salve at feeling good about themselves for the made-up environmental crisis going on.
Let’s also not ignore the fires that they cause and the inability to put them out. They just burn to the ground (or 57,000 gallons of water for the enviro-weenies trying to save the planet – irony and sarcasm there).
So unless they bribe the buyers to get a technology worse than a petroleum powered car, people don’t want them.
Let’s not ignore that the manufacturers lose 10’s of thousands on every car they build (to the tune of a billion and a half loss for Ford alone this year).
So other than to make someone feel good because they are a greentard, there is no reason to buy one, yet. There may be a better iteration in the future, but it isn’t now.
For the record, I drove last weekend for 4 hours in my diesel truck and got 36 MPG. I didn’t hurt a plant or a tree.
Economics and technology say it’s a loser. It’s just another idea by the Enviro-nuts to try and make us do something because they hate petroleum.
EU Mandate here:
The mandate is so utterly unattainable that EAMA makes this projection as part of its application for a delay:
EU rules targeting a CO2 fleet emission of about 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer per vehicle would require automakers to either halt production of about 2 million cars or be exposed to fines that could reach €13 billion ($14.3 billion) for passenger cars, according to estimates by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association contained in the draft and seen by Bloomberg.
Van manufacturers could also face paying an additional €3 billion for falling short of targets, said the group that’s currently headed by Renault SA Chief Executive Officer Luca de Meo.
“The EU is in a crisis caused by low consumer demand for EVs and unfair competition from third country EV manufacturers, meaning that the EU industry
Volvo has announced it will be getting rid of its plan to sell only fully electric cars by 2030.
The auto manufacturer announced on Wednesday, that it is now aiming for 90-100% of its global sales to be either pure electric or plug-in hybrid at that point.
The Swedish company said this will “allow for a limited number of mild hybrid models to be sold, if needed.”
The latest move by Volvo comes after Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have both previously announced a shift in their respective EV strategies.
“An electric car provides a superior driving experience and increases possibilities for using advanced technologies that improve the overall customer experience,” Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars, said on Wednesday in the written statement.
“However, it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption,” he continued.
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
More sheep have woken up I suppose. There is no good reason or argument for them in their current configuration. They are expensive, hard to charge (compared to an ICE), cost more to insure and are limited in range. I’m not going to get into the socialistic forks in the road like the government kill switch because it just isn’t a very good product yet. There isn’t enough electricity for what they have planned along with AI and all of the restrictions on energy sources
Most buyers thought they were helping the environment or being progressive or tech savvy. I’ve got news for you. This isn’t the answer you were looking for, just money thrown away to feel or look good.
So now we have buyers remorse.
My wife’s nephew in Europe is a big show off with these. For being an engineer, he hasn’t thought this one through, but I’ll always think of him as a jag off. It’s easy to be smart when the pool of people in your country is only 5 million, but then he didn’t think through that either.
Nearly half of American electric vehicle (EV) owners want to buy an internal combustion engine model the next time they buy a car, according to a new study from McKinsey and Company, a leading consulting firm.
Approximately 46% of Americans who own an EV want to go back to a standard vehicle for their next purchase, citing issues like inadequate charging infrastructure and affordability, according to McKinsey’s study, which was obtained and reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The study’s findings further suggest that the Biden administration’s EV push is struggling to land with American consumers, after 46% of respondents indicated that they are unlikely or very unlikely to purchase an EV in a June poll conducted by The Associated Press and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.
Moreover, 58% of Americans are very likely to keep their current cars for longer, and 44% are likely to postpone a possible switch to EVs, McKinsey’s study found. Consumers’ concerns about EV charging infrastructure are notable given the slow rollout of the Biden administration’s $7.5 billion public EV charger program, which has so far led to the construction of only a handful of chargers in nearly three years.
What is the reason for the discrepancy between the ambitious goal and the disastrous reality? The Washington Free Beacon obtained internal memos from the Department of Transportation and interviewed those responsible for overseeing the project’s implementation to find out.
It turns out that the administration’s own “Diversity—Equity—Inclusion” initiatives are stalling EV Charging Station construction.
Shortly after taking office, the president signed an executive order mandating that the beneficiaries of 40 percent of all federal climate and environmental programs should come from “underserved communities.” The order also established the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which monitors agencies such as the Department of Transportation to ensure the “voices, perspectives, and lived realities of communities with environmental justice concerns are heard in the White House and reflected in federal policies, investments, and decisions.”
In order to qualify for a grant, applicants must “demonstrate how meaningful public involvement, inclusive of disadvantaged communities, will occur throughout a project’s life cycle.” What “public involvement” means is unclear. But the Department of Transportation notes it should involve “intentional outreach to underserved communities.”
That outreach, the Department of Transportation states, can take the form of “games and contests,” “visual preference surveys,” or “neighborhood block parties” so long as the grant recipient provides “multilingual staff or interpreters to interact with community members who use languages other than English.”
“This all just slows down construction,” says Jim Meigs, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who focuses on federal regulation.
The DEI mandates are also hindering the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan measure designed to enhance U.S. semiconductor supply chains and support private-sector investment in domestic research and manufacturing.
Our president and his press secretaries seem to lie with every word they say and deny facts that anyone with a pair of eyes can see for himself.
Scientists and doctors, formerly among the most trusted members of our society, lie to foster popular environmental theories and get government grants, or to promote Big Pharma and deter people from effective treatments.
Our news media no longer report the news; they shape the news as instructed.
Here is just a sample of commonly promoted lies starting in 2020.
The German automaker’s limousine customers care as much about comfort and status as saving the planet
Bloomberg reports on how Volkswagen’s EV fantasy has just collided with reality. Volkswagen walks back EV or bus strategy that rankled rivals. CEO Oliver Blumer is turning to hybrids and striking partnerships as EV sales slow. Volkswagen AG’s all-in on electric vehicle plan is no more. The namesake VW brand, which pitched its ID family of electric cars as central to its future, admitted last week it will need more plug-in hybrids as EV sales decelerate. This marks just the latest adjustment VW has made to its electrification strategy after the company botched several model releases and fell behind in China, where local brands now dominate. The manufacturer has also shelved efforts to seek outside investors for its battery unit and scrapped plans for a 2 billion Euro ($2.2 billion) EV factory in Germany. In fact, the automaker is selling so many cars still running on combustion engines that it’s on track to overshoot its emissions allowance next year, leading Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blumer to ask European regulators for leniency.
And Mercedes has dumped an entire EV platform after a woeful sale of its larger EV models. As Top Gear reports, Mercedes has reportedly cancelled an entire EV platform, and apparently, slow EV sales are to blame. Farewell, MBEA; we hardly knew you. Mercedes is putting the kibosh on the development of its MBEA large electric vehicle platform, having apparently been put off by the EQE and EQS’s slower than expected sales. OD Deia first reported by Handelsblut, the move will supposedly save billions in development costs as Mercedes rethinks its future luxury car strategy.
I’ve already posted today that EV’s are not a solution to anything. My wife’s relatives in a Scandinavian country have them, but they continue be on the side of wrong for just about anything. I’ve learned to go against what they choose and I’m usually on the right side of most things. They are proud of their decisions and have no idea that they are so far from the truth.
(ZeroHedge)—Ten years ago this week, we posted one of out most viral stories, highlighting the over-capacity in the auto industry: “Where the World’s Unsold Cars Go To Die,” which highlighted the ‘endgame’ of automakers’ ‘channel stuffing’ efforts to disguise the sudden lack of demand for all the exciting new models that they had forecast would boom to the moon…
Due to China’s overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated.
You probably need to see it to appreciate the challenges the automobile industry faces in transitioning to electricity. You also need to come here to understand how the Chinese industry’s overcapacity has flooded the European market. That morning, as the sun unexpectedly lit up the maze of highways leading to this remote arm of the port of Antwerp, Belgium, a huge cargo ship from the Norwegian company Höegh Autoliners unloaded thousands of cars at one of the terminals of International Car Operators (ICO), a subsidiary of the Japanese group Nippon Yusen Kaisha.
Imported vehicles are seriously piling up at European ports, turning them into “car parks.” Automakers are distributors are struggling with a slowdown in car sales as well as logistical bottlenecks that make it hard to alleviate the buildup of new, unsold vehicles.
Some Chinese brand EVs had been sitting in European ports for up to 18 months, while some ports had asked importers to provide proof of onward transport, according to industry executives. One car logistics expert said many of the unloaded vehicles were simply staying in the ports until they were sold to distributors or end users.
“It’s chaos,” said another person who had been briefed on the situation.
If you search the site for EVs or Electric Vehicles, you’ll find every reason not to buy one, and thankfully, we’re not the only ones pointing it out. EV sales are lousy in the US, which has to be why Democrat states are looking to ban gas-powered cars.
They want you on an EV bus, a bicycle, walking, or better yet – living on an urban heat island confined to quarters. If you live under that yoke, here’s a reminder of why you need to make a change politically – if you still can.
EVs have a short shelf life compared to other vehicles. Whatever the battery warranty is, that’s it. It’s over. No one is going to buy it used; it is almost worthless as a trade-in. Given how much shorter this life span can be compared to a more affordable combustion engine vehicle (assuming you didn’t crash your EV and have to scrap it sooner), you will need another car. If you are an EV-tard, that’ll mean another whole-vehicle carbon footprint before its time and a repeat of what you just went through.
If you buy a used EV and the car is over five years old (Don’t do it!), You can expect to spend two to three times its value to replace the battery pack, which has been losing range rapidly since you bought it. You might get a few years out of it.
In other words, never buy a used EV. Just don’t do it. Here’s an example of the problem and why internal combustion engine vehicles are irreplaceable (disregarding the reality that EV trucks, tractors, and other heavy equipment will never be EV on this technology)
It’s a cult purchase for those who are good sheep or socialists that think somehow they are helping the environment while young children are digging up Cobalt for their batteries half way around the world.
Plus, the sound of a V-8 or a V-12 is a dick hardener for those of us who have a pair and know how a car should sound.
E.V.s – even the best ones – have higher maintenance and insurance costs than regular gasoline-powered vehicles, for a number of reasons: more expensive parts, more accidents, fewer qualified mechanics.
E.V.s – even the best ones – take much longer to recharge than regular gasoline-powered vehicles. A fill-up takes two to five minutes; a charge takes fifteen minutes (if all the stars align), but can take much longer, even hours, and that’s if you can find a working charging station when you need one.
E.V.s — even the best ones — pose a higher risk of being totaled by insurance companies, either after accidents, or after all the odd circumstances that cause spontaneous combustion. E.V. fires have destroyed homes, garages, even cargo ships. The battery is usually irreparable. As a result, insurance companies are increasingly determining that the damage threshold between “repair it” and “scrap it” is a lot lower for E.V.s than for other vehicles.
All this isn’t to say that E.V.s shouldn’t be a part of the mix, but they clearly ought to be viewed as another niche segment, at just a few percent, like luxury cars and convertibles….
Instead of heeding the warnings about the practicality of EV ownership and maintenance in the country, Biden’s EPA persists in using regulations to bend the American people to its will.
This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is poised to finalize emissions rules that will effectively require a certain percentage—as much as two-thirds by 2032—of new cars to be all-electric, Politico and other outlets have reported in recent days. The ruling could be announced as soon as this Wednesday.
These standards could first loosen the tough EV requirements between 2027 and 2030, but then mandate an aggressive ramping up of EV sales from 2031. In other words, these revised rules would give car companies a bit of a pass on EVs in the short term, while still pushing for a mostly-electric future starting in the next decade.
In a joint announcement Wednesday, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the most aggressive multi-pollutant emission standards ever finalized. While the regulations target gas-powered vehicles, they are explicitly designed to push wider nationwide adoption of electric vehicles (EV) and, according to officials, are expected to ensure nearly 70% of all new car sales are zero-emissions within a few years.
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When the tailpipe emissions rules kick in, automakers will be compelled to increase production and sales of EVs, plug-in hybrids, traditional hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. Under one “low cost” model EPA outlined in the rule, officials said automakers would be forced to ensure 56% of light-duty car sales are battery electric and another 13% are hybrid by 2032.
What is it going to take to get these MFCS out of our lives and let us live it. Time to get a car without computer chips in it that you can work on yourself so they can’t regulate it or hit the kill switch. EV’s aren’t an answer to what we need. The infrastructure isn’t there, nor are they economically viable.
Though windmills and solar panels get the headlines, the big energy topic in Washington is electric transmission. Whether it is Congress’s newfound interest in permitting reform, the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Grid Deployment Office, or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) upcoming final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, how to build and pay for long-range transmission to connect generators to customers is considered the final piece in the quest to meet net-zero goals.
Like so many issues in Washington, the need for more transmission lines is accepted without question and the costs are not considered. But for American consumers, especially low-income and elderly, as well as small businesses and energy intense manufacturers, building new transmission lines could result in much higher monthly bills and leave them on the hook for stranded assets.
Traditionally, high-voltage transmission lines, consisting of 150-foot lattice towers crossing the landscape for hundreds of miles, were planned for by local utilities to meet their customers’ energy needs and subject to approval by state public utility commissions. But public policy goals to promote renewables are changing how the grid is being developed.
Over the past few years, States established renewable energy mandates; Congress enacted over $1 trillion in taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy; and President Biden issued an executive order setting net-zero goals for electricity generation by 2035. To fulfill these policies, the grid needs new high-voltage transmission lines—lots of them—and they will be expensive.
According to the “Net-Zero America” analysis published by Princeton researchers, achieving net zero goals with 100% wind and solar by 2050 will require an additional $3.5 trillion in capital spending for new transmission lines. If net-zero goals are pursued with a mix of renewables, nuclear, and natural gas generation (which may include carbon capture), then a significant portion of this transmission investment would be unnecessary. Furthermore, a balanced resource mix of dispatchable and renewable resources would enhance grid reliability without overbuilding renewables or transmission.
A 2022 study found that electric vehicles (EVs) which left-leaning governments in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere are pushing on the population, pollute at a rate far higher than their gasoline or diesel-powered counterparts.
The 2022 study from the U.K.-based Emissions Analytics group found that during a 1,000 mile journey, EVs release 1,850 times more pollutants into the surrounding environment than gas-powered vehicles, due to the heavier weight which eats through tires.
While many think of emissions from exhaust, tire wear plays a significant role in emitting pollutants. The synthetic rubber used to create tires include certain chemicals that get released into the air, and because EVs are significantly heavier than conventional cars due to massive lithium batteries.
Overall, EVs weigh about 30 percent more than gas-powered vehicles, and cost thousands more to make and buy. These issues are in addition to the fact that they are not suitable in colder climates (such as Canada and the northern U.S.), offer poor range and long charging times (especially in cold weather), and have batteries that take tremendous resources to make and are hard to recycle.
Color us not surprised, but another one of the Biden administration’s “visions” for forcing people to own electric vehicles isn’t working out exactly as planned.
This time it deals with supply chain logistics, with Bloomberg reporting this week that in the year and a half since passing the Inflation Reduction Act, automakers are finding out the hard way that the rigorous criteria for manufacturing batteries using materials from the United States and its free-trade allies could render them cost-inefficient compared to global competitors.
Companies like Tesla are instead taking advantage of a temporary shift in the rules to stock up with cheaper batteries from countries like China.
The Biden administration’s new rules will all but cut out China from the supply chain, however, which will make it tougher to find affordable metal suppliers.
This, in turn, will threaten President Biden’s goal to boost the domestic electric vehicle market. Bloomberg writes that mining companies and labor unions insist that without curtailing the influx of cheaper, Chinese-subsidized materials, the U.S. can’t develop a competitive EV market.
Meanwhile, the higher costs are driving automakers away from EVs. And as battery material requirements are set to double by 2027, fulfilling these mandates will be increasingly difficult, putting Biden’s ambitious EV strategy at risk.
Mercedes-Benz on Thursday walked back plans to have an all-electric line-up by 2030 as consumers decline to adopt electric vehicles (EV) at the rate automakers expected.
The company has changed its expectations to have only 50% of its sales be EVs by 2030, announcing that it will be updating its current line-up featuring the internal combustion engine into the next decade, according to Mercedes-Benz in its fourth quarter report. EV sales grew 21% year-over-year in 2023, but total car sales remained relatively the same, bucking hopes that EVs would fuel growth as the automaker pushes electric models.
Give me a deep throated V-8 or the scream of a V-12 ICE any day.
I worked in this industry and it’s been one lie after another since it began
Led by an elderly man experiencing cognitive decline, the Biden administration has launched a strident effort to promote electric vehicle (E.V.) sales. This push is part of a globalist climate change agenda that ignores the unreliability of renewable energy during winter storms and heat waves. The unreliability of green energy sources was illustrated by the 2021 winter storm in Texas, which paralyzed the state’s wind energy system — the second largest energy source — leaving some Texans unable to flush their toilets or power their electric vehicles. Now E.V. sales, for a variety of reasons, are deservedly losing momentum among U.S. buyers.
The decline in sales persists despite three critical factors favoring non–fossil fuel energy generation: (1) the world’s rising investment of billions of dollars in E.V. technology; (2) rising tailpipe emissions regulations; (3) apocalyptic claims tied to climate change that are part of the Western world’s war on fossil fuels, gas stoves, and homes heated by natural gas. While American electric vehicle sales rose rapidly during the first eleven months of 2023, they plateaued in November.
In other words, even though E.V. sales initially cannibalized the market for gas and diesel vehicles during 2022 and 2023 as financial analysts promoted exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in E.V.s as part of an investment scheme to transform both the economy and energy production, these speculative chickens have now come home to roost.
Two statistics highlight this outcome. First, the empirical evidence shows that luxury E.V.s depreciate faster than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Second, Ford Motor Company recently revealed that it incurred a loss of $4.7 billion on its electric vehicles.
You can’t turn on your phone, start an EV or use most connected devices without them, yet we still are beholden to China or the slave labor children who dig it up.
Politicians will have to “approve” the go ahead to mine them and save us a lot of supply chain problems and lower costs to the middle class, the current group being rogered by Congress.
The biggest hurdle is that China’s domination is in place as a lot of politicians are on the Chinese payroll and won’t approve the things best for the American people.
As you go to the election booth this year, watch and see if they help you, or help themselves to another serving of lobbyist money courtesy of China.
Now I have some good news to share. Our country could soon surpass China as the world leader in rare earth minerals after more than 2.34 billion metric tons were discovered in Wyoming.
American Rare Earths Inc announced that the reserves near Wheatland dramatically surpass the Asian nation’s 44 million metric tons, saying it ‘exceeded our wildest dreams’ after drilling only about 25 percent of the property.
The company has a stake in 367 mining claims across 6,320 acres of land in the Halleck Creek Project, along with four Wyoming mineral leases on 1,844 acres on the same project now called Cowboy State Mine.
The types of minerals at the site are used in smartphones, hybrid car motors and military technologies – among others.
Since China’s extraction ban, one company, American Rare Earths, has been working hard to expand our nation’s access options. It appears they may have struck the mother lode.
American Rare Earths Inc. has its sights on thousands of acres of land near Wheatland, Wyoming. The company disclosed in a technical report on Wednesday that it found 64% more rare earth minerals than it had originally envisioned in a March 2023 assessment of the land.
The newly disclosed figure of 2.34 billion metric tons of rare earth minerals found southwest of Wheatland by American Rare Earths Inc. could dwarf in size the 1.2 million metric ton estimates in northeastern Wyoming that one of its competitors claimed was one of the biggest discoveries in the world.
A metric ton equals about 2,200 pounds while a ton is 2,000 pounds.
“This exceeded our wildest dreams, and we only drilled on about 25% of the property,” said Donald Swartz, CEO of American Rare Earths.
The company is the U.S.-based unit of an Australian-founded exploration company working in Wyoming.
Another company is also working on another potentially rich site for these valuable minerals.
Ramaco Resources revealed it had found a deposit of rare minerals near Sheridan in Wyoming, that could have a value of $37 billion.
Ramaco Resources CEO Randall Atkins told Cowboy State Daily: “We only tested it for 100, 200 feet, which is about the maximum you’d ever want to do a conventional coal mine.
I can only hope we will eventually have politicians and policy implementers that permit us to develop these valuable resources.
Cities coast-to-coast grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed ..
Between the federal government, states and municipalities, untold billions in taxpayer dollars have been spent adding electric buses to transit fleets across the U.S. in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.
However, cities from coast-to-coast are grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed, are too expensive to fix, or they have scrapped their electric fleets altogether.
Officials in Asheville, North Carolina, recently expressed frustration that three of the five e-buses the city purchased for millions in 2018 are now sitting idle due to a combination of software issues, mechanical problems and an inability to obtain replacement parts.
Earlier this month, The Denver Gazette reported two of the four e-buses Colorado Springs’ Mountain Metropolitan Transit acquired in 2021 are not running. They cost $1.2 million a piece, mostly paid for by government grants.
Part of the problem is the manufacturer of the buses, Proterra, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August. The company, founded in 2004, rose to become the largest e-bus company in the U.S., representing nearly 40% of the market prior to going belly-up.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm sat on Proterra’s board until she joined the Biden administration
Is it time to start asking whether electric vehicles have any redeeming value in 2024? Given the recent spate of bad news surrounding them, the answer to that question is becoming clearer.
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As RedState reported, Ford has cut the production of its “Lightning” electric pickup truck in half. Why? Mainly because no one wants to buy them. Why do they not want to buy them? Because they are overpriced, unreliable, and impractical.
Who could have guessed that paying $55,000 (and that’s with EV subsidies) for a stripped-down, base-level truck that overheats when you tow things and can’t drive over 300 miles on a single charge wouldn’t appeal to the average F-150 buyer? Certainly, people who use their trucks for work have found little to no use for such a pointless monstrosity.
It’s not just the Lightning, though. The entire EV industry is getting hit by reality right now.
There is no better example of government idiocy than the top-down push for electric vehicles, which at this point has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. They were a solution to a problem that didn’t exist, and even then, they turned out to not be a solution at all. It’s not just about cost either. How useful is a car that loses most of its range when it gets below freezing? How useful is a car that can’t be driven for more than a few hours in a row, even in perfect conditions?
Burn baby burn, disco inferno. The arctic freeze proves that they can’t hold a charge in the cold. Ford lost 4.4 billion on EV production because no one wanted them, or could afford them.
Now, we know why we can’t afford to own them.
Electric vehicles (EVs) appear to have caused multiple fires at manufacturing factories in recent months, sparking a reminder about EV safety.
Most recently, the Detroit Fire Department responded to a three-alarm fire involving lithium-ion batteries at General Motors’ Factory Zero last month, according to Detroit Free Press.
“Our initial investigation indicates a forklift accidentally punctured a container with battery materials, causing the fire,” Tara Stewart Kuhnen, GM spokeswoman, said in an email Wednesday.
The newspaper also reported another fire at the property in October that involved an autonomous electric car. It states the fire department’s report mentions a battery fire.
However, Kuhnen told the newspaper that a non-battery-related component caused the second fire.
Outside Detroit, the Auburn Hills Fire Department responded to a November fire at Chrysler’s Tech Center.
Multiple media reports say Chrysler’s fire involved an EV as well.
This is somewhat of a predictably tragic outcome all things considered. I remember a previous conversation on these pages when GM moved massive investment into China to build their mid-size SUV brand, Encore.
Continuing the U.S. decline of the brand, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that approximately half of all Buick dealership in the U.S. have opted to take a buyout from GM, as opposed to spending millions in retooling, restructuring and retraining their staff to accommodate the EV influx.
Most of the EV’s shoved onto the dealer lots sit idle without customers to purchase them.
When the temperature drops below 40 degrees, which occurs over 200 days per year in Eau Claire, electric vehicles experience a reduction in range and efficiency, with losses of up to 40% when the heating system is in use.
While the truck was up on the lift, Liz Fox, a service adviser at the shop, told me that while not many electric vehicles come in for repairs, when they do, repairs typically take longer and are more expensive than repairing internal-combustion engine vehicles.
“Switching to EVs is really costly, and it’s going to be really time-consuming.” Fox told me. She cited a recent case where nearly two months were spent troubleshooting and sourcing components on a broken EV, despite having a certified electric vehicle technician.
EAU CLAIRE, Wis.—Here in Wisconsin, where fewer than one-tenth of 1% of vehicles are fully electric, it’s rare to see an EV outside the city.
That’s why the latest international climate conference, Conference of the Parties (COP28), which advocated widespread adoption of electric vehicles, should have Wisconsinites concerned.
When the temperature drops below 40 degrees, which occurs over 200 days per year in Eau Claire, electric vehicles experience a reduction in range and efficiency, with losses of up to 40% when the heating system is in use.
My visit to my local automotive shop to have the tires rotated on the family Ram truck was unaffected by the 13-degree Fahrenheit weather.
While the truck was up on the lift, Liz Fox, a service adviser at the shop, told me that while not many electric vehicles come in for repairs, when they do, repairs typically take longer and are more expensive than repairing internal-combustion engine vehicles.
“Switching to EVs is really costly, and it’s going to be really time-consuming.” Fox told me. She cited a recent case where nearly two months were spent troubleshooting and sourcing components on a broken EV, despite having a certified electric vehicle technician.
She’s not alone. A recent report shows that repair costs for EVs are 56% more expensive than traditional vehicles—and purchase costs are often 50% higher.
A new special report by The Heritage Foundation, “Powering Human Advancement,” shows how access to affordable, abundant energy is essential to living. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“Depriving people in any society of reliable and affordable energy denies them access to clean water, adequate medical care, affordable transportation, and economic opportunities, which will limit any human advancement, especially in the most vulnerable of countries,” the report states.
Governments and international organizations cannot force renewable energy and electric vehicles before people are ready. That’s a recipe for crisis.
Construction sites in Eau Claire feature battered pickup trucks and SUVs driven by construction workers, who can’t afford EVs. There is no subway in Eau Claire, bus service is limited, and people can’t rely on bicycles due to snowy weather and long distances.
Affordable transportation provides a means to a job, a ride to school, and to take weekend trips and vacations with the family.
In contrast, EVs are popular as second cars with upper-income individuals who have short commutes. Americans value the freedom to choose gasoline-only, hybrid, or electric vehicles, and for that freedom, it’s crucial to have alternative choices. But the organizers of COP28, supported by President Joe Biden, don’t want Americans or residents of other countries to choose which vehicles to buy.
This erosion of choice is not only detrimental to consumer freedom, but also to the livelihood of auto producers and car dealers. Look no further than last month’s letter to Biden signed by about 4,000 auto dealers, who were disturbed at the surging supply of unsold electric vehicles on their lots.
Even with subsidies to car manufacturers and tax credits for buyers, only 7% of new-vehicle sales are electric, well below Biden’s 2030 goal of 60%.
Codifying the recommendations of COP28 would require that America generate an additional costly 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or 30% of current output, to support the charging needs of a full fleet of electric vehicles.
Over the past two decades, nearly $7 trillion has been spent globally on subsidies for wind and solar energy. Despite this substantial investment, these sources contribute only 2.3% to the global supply of energy. Pairing fully electric vehicles with costly and unreliable electricity is a recipe for disaster.
Wisconsinites appreciate the benefits of affordable energy and the mobility of gasoline-powered cars. As a cold Christmas approaches, they know that COP28 recommendations won’t fly here in the Badger State.
I’m not going to get into the Ford/Chevy debate. This is about ICE (internal combustion engine) vs EV’s. A 7.3 liter V8 monster.
I’m old school and like to hear the growl of a powerful engine. EV’s are fast, but lack the sensory overload you get with the sound and smell of a powerful ICE.
What is best about this is the manufacturers play follow the leader. If one makes something people like, they all will build one. Then you can argue about manufacturer.
Just like I was against the jab because the government jammed it down most peoples throats (not me), trying force EV’s on the population smells of the same rat (again, not me).
My daughter borrowed my truck with flowmaster exhaust just to show off the sound in high school. They sat in the parking lot and revved through a half a tank of gas just to listen to it. No one is going to be that cool with an EV.
Back in September 2022, Ford Authority reported that The Blue Oval had filed to trademark “Megazilla” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which seemingly previewed the arrival of a new, more potent version of the existing 7.3L V8 Godzilla powerplant. A few months later, that’s precisely what happened when Ford officially revealed the new Megazilla crate engine, but in the year since then, the automaker has remained radio silent on that particular offering, even as other engines have been added. Now, however, Ford has officially revealed the pricing of the new 7.3L V8 Megazilla powerplant, even if it still isn’t yet available to order.
Listed in the Ford Performance catalog under part number M-6007-MZ73, the Megazilla retails for $22,995, which is a relatively hefty sum. However, buyers get a fairly complete package when they order one, as the Megazilla comes as a long block with coils, plug wires, spark plugs, an oil pan, and an engine wiring harness, all in a special shipping and storage crate. However, things like the control pack, a custom calibration, a starter, and accessory components are sold separately or otherwise required for installation.
What buyers do get is a cast iron block filled with a performance camshaft, a steel crank, Mahle forged 10.5:1 compression pistons, and Callies H-beam forged connecting rods, along with CNC ported aluminum cylinder heads, a low profile intake manifold, and a 92mm throttle body, all of which results in an output of 615 horsepower and 638 pound-feet of torque on pump gas.
As for fitment, installing a Megazilla should prove relatively straightforward in a wide array of applications thanks to the fact that it utilizes the same bellhousing bolt pattern as the 5.0L V8 Coyote, 4.6L V8, and 5.4L V8. It remains to be seen when the Megazilla will be available to order, but it was previously slated to launch in Q2 of this year.
(Natural News)—Electric vehicles are failing to live up to their promise, with a new report from Consumer Reports showing that they have an incredible 79 percent more problems than their conventional counterparts, in addition to being less reliable.
Plug-in hybrids fared even worse, registering 146 percent more problems than vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines.
According to Consumer Reports, the least reliable type of vehicle overall was electric pickup trucks.
They reached this conclusion based on a survey they conducted among members about issues they have had with their vehicles during the past year. Data from more than 330,000 vehicles with model years from 2000 onward was included in the assessment.
Their study involved 20 types of issues that range from minor nuisances like squeaky brakes to significant issues such as battery and charging problems and transmission issues, which were given a greater weight than minor issues. Consumer Reports noted that the charging problems they considered were those related to the vehicles themselves rather than public or home chargers.
“As more EVs hit the marketplace and automakers build each model in greater numbers, we are seeing that some of them have problems with the EV drive system motors, EV charging systems, and EV batteries (which are different from the low-power 12-volt batteries that power accessories),” Consumer Reports noted.
Electric vehicles are not nearly as popular as their advocates would have had us believe, as sales are now slumping in the face of rising interest rates and a lack of so-called fast chargers. As we begin to bump up against mined mineral constraints and international relations complications, there’s no doubt the cost of making these glorified toys will continue to rise. A recent Consumer Reports publication shows that, over the last 3 model years, electric vehicles are less reliable than normal gasoline and diesel vehicles. So, several states want to ban the sale of reliable, inexpensive gas and diesel cars and force us to buy less reliable electric cars. Note well that the superior reliability of hybrids is likely down to the fact that car makers who are better known for their reliability make more hybrids. There’s nothing inherent to a hybrid that would make it more reliable than a gasoline engine vehicle.
Even our ability to travel using air travel is under the gun. A CNN op-ed recently floated the idea of limiting air travel through the use of carbon (read: sin) passports. We will be limited to traveling based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the flight. The author wants this applied to cruise ships as well. It’s not hard to see this applied to your car as well. Of course, such rules will not apply to the super-wealthy climate grifters. They’ll be jetting all over the globe for their very important climate conferences.
And it’s not just transportation. In September, Reuters “fact checked” a claim that US cities had agreed to limit meat consumption, finding the claim false. And yet, we are told on a nearly daily basis that eliminating beef consumption is necessary to save the planet. The sin of using coal (but not apparently to create steel) has become the sin of eating a steak. What’s next? Rice? Pork?
Beginning in 2024, the German government will empower local electricity providers to limit the flow of electricity to heat pumps and electric cars. Such limits were the stuff of alleged conspiracy theories mere months ago. Now they’re a reality. Germany’s suicidal attempt to power their grid with nothing but wind and solar, killing off their own nuclear power generation over the last 20 years, has led to energy rationing. It’s not as if this is unpredictable. The unreliability of so-called renewables is common knowledge among energy experts.
It’s sensible for those who are concerned about their ability to choose where and when they travel, what they eat, and when they turn on their heaters and air conditioners to be skeptical of every single attempt to accrue more power by state and federal governments. That skepticism should turn into activism against these power grabs. Anyone who tells you these power grabs aren’t coming is telling you not to believe your own eyes.
Give me a V-8 and some good regular gas any day. Read below that they are blowing up while being shipped.
In reality, they are battery powered. All the electricity is produces by oil and coal anyway. They aren’t fooling anybody but themselves. I guess they feel better about the environment by driving one, but then the climatards have been wrong all along. It’s just more bullshit they are trying to shove down our throats to make people comply. Well, we are not the borg, at least some of us.
In a tragic incident in Naples, Italy, a fatal explosion occurred involving an experimental hybrid electric car.
The vehicle was a Volkswagen Polo, a prototype used as part of a project called “Life-Save,” testing the possibility of combining an electric motor with batteries powered by solar panels in cars, a translated version of the Today Chronicle reported.
According to a report from Newsweek, the tragic accident claimed the life of researcher Maria Vittoria Prati and left trainee student Fulvio Filace with severe burns.
Both individuals were associated with the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche research institute and were traveling on the Naples ring road when the explosion took place.
Following the blast, the victims were rushed to the Antonio Cardarelli Hospital in critical condition.
Tragically, Maria Vittoria Prati succumbed to her injuries — burns that covered 90 percent of her body — on Monday.
The car involved in this incident was part of an ongoing research project on engine hybridization, undertaken by the Motor Institute of the CNR in collaboration with the University of Salerno.
Some have theorized that the explosion was due to some type of flammable material contained in the cylinders igniting; however, that has not been confirmed at this time.
Although the exact cause of the explosion has yet to be determined, hybrid and fully electric vehicles have faced safety concerns in the past, including instances of fires and explosions.
Such incidents have been observed with electric and hybrid cars, including certain Tesla models.
The incidents are becoming so common that some shipping companies are refusing to transport electric vehicles.
The dangers associated with EVs have also led to some governments taking actions to protect the public. It was reported last year that a state-owned public transport operator in Paris, France, the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, pulled out 149 electric buses from its fleet after two of them spontaneously exploded within the same month.
The Public Prosecutor of Naples has initiated an investigation to shed light on the circumstances surrounding Friday’s explosion, Newsweek reported.
Meanwhile, Fabio Corsaro, cousin of Filace, expressed gratitude for the support provided by the medical team and questioned the decision to expose a trainee about to graduate in mechanical engineering to potential risks.
“I believe it is essential that it be clarified why a trainee close to graduation had been designated for that position to transport evidently dangerous material together with a researcher. What is the added value for an internship offered by such an activity remains a mystery,” he said.
Corsaro emphasized the need for a comprehensive understanding of the incident and its implications, as it remains a tragic event that has disrupted the dreams and aspirations of a young individual.
While disasters like these are disheartening, they serve as reminders of the challenges that come with new technology and innovation.
Currently, China is producing more pollution and C02 and trash than the rest of the world combined. Add the number 2 offender India and you have almost all the climate change problem that the talking heads are espousing.
But wait, C02 and the temperature were hotter hundreds of years ago. There weren’t as many people or cars back then. How do you explain that? I can, it’s called cyclical climate patterns that have gone on without man affecting it.
The popular target is the United States, who has reduced it’s footprint more than most, but is the bank of climate change to cash in on.
The science says man hasn’t affected the climate as much as the AGW play for money says it has. I had to listen to the pontificating by Climatards like Tim O’Reilly and Tom Raftery on this nonsense for years when I was at IBM. I never believed it was anything but a grasp at attention and money. They lead in being wrong on the climate with Al Gore, Greta, AOC and John Kerry, but right on scaring people for money.
Obviously, this is already a scam. And the few sincere environmentalists who believe the sky is actually falling denounce it as such. But it’s an incredibly lucrative scam that moves billions if not trillions of dollars around.
The inadequacy of wind power The plan dramatically to cut the combustion of fossil fuels was accepted at the 2015 Paris Conference. The instinctive reac- tion around the world has been to revert to ‘renewables’, the sources of energy delivered intermittently by the power of the Sun. Unfortunately this power, attenuated by the huge distance that it must travel to reach the Earth, is extremely weak. That is why, before the advent of the Industrial Revo- lution, it was unable to provide the energy to sustain even a small global population with an acceptable standard of living. Today, modern technology is deployed to harvest these weak sources of energy. Vast ‘farms’ that monopolise the natu- ral environment are built, to the detriment of other creatures. Developments are made regardless of the damage wrought. Hydro-electric schemes, enormous turbines and square miles of solar panels are constructed, despite being unreliable and ineffective; even unnecessary.1 In particular, the generation of electricity by wind tells a disappointing story. The political enthusiasm and the inves- tor hype are not supported by the evidence, even for offshore wind, which can be deployed out of sight of the infamous My Back Yard. What does such evidence actually say? That the wind fluctuates is common knowledge. But these fluctuations are grossly magnified to an extent that is not immediately obvious – and has nothing to do with the technology of the wind turbine. The energy of the wind is that of the moving air, and, as every student knows, such energy is ½Mv2, where M is the mass of air and v the speed. The mass of air reaching each square metre of the area swept by the turbine blade in a second is M = ρv, where ρ is the density of air: about 1.2 kg per cubic metre. So, the maximum power that the turbine can deliver is ½ρv3 watts per square metre. If the wind speed is 10 metres per second (about 20 mph) the power is 600 watts per square metre at 100% efficiency.2 That means to deliver the same power as Hinkley Point C (3200 million watts) by wind would require 5.5 million square metres of turbine swept area – that should be quite unacceptable to those who care about birds and to other environmentalists. But the performance of wind is much worse than that, as a look at the simple formula shows. Because the power carried by the wind depends on the third power of the wind speed, if the wind drops to half speed, the power available drops by a factor of 8. Almost worse, if the wind speed doubles, the pow- er delivered goes up 8 times, and as a result the turbine has to be turned off for its own protection. This is not related to the technology of the turbine, which can harvest no more than the power that reaches the area swept by its blades.
My wife’s relatives in Denmark are going to have to deal with this inconvenient truth. They bought the wind farm hoax a long time ago. I don’t bother telling them they are wrong. They have to justify living in that place and this is part of it.
Even more for evidence for Tim and Tom, who said both tides are rising and that Climate Science is hard when I asked him for facts. It’s only hard if it’s your religion and you ignore both the truth and science. Oh look, the tide is the same as it was 1620. Must be that AGW that doesn’t change anything.
General Motors has announced the end of production for the sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro for the 2024 model year. Another American muscle icon bites the dust — but Chevy says this isn’t the end of the road for the vehicle as we know it; we just have no idea what’s coming next. The final car will roll off the production line at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in January of next year.
In the manufacturer battle, I never once pulled for a Camaro in Trans-Am, NASCAR, IMSA or any other series. I’d never buy one either. It doesn’t lower my respect for it as a good car, except for the gas war years when all cars got neutered.
I’ve followed them since 1968 because of Roger Penske and Mark Donohue. Those pony car days made for great auto’s and brand marketing. This includes the Mach 1 which I think is going away also.
One of my friends in college had the bad ass Z-28, sort of like this one.
He’s lucky he didn’t get killed on the run from Orlando to Haines City at over 100 MPH.
Not being a GM fan doesn’t mean I don’t respect it as a good car.
It’s a shame for GM to kill off such an iconic brand. Not one of the major manufacturer’s are making money on EV’s (other than Tesla) and they keep cutting their own throats with moves like this.
I’d never buy one, but you need good competitors to have a race. Chevy just took that away.
I find this interesting because part of the thrill of one of these ultimate driving machines is the sensory overload. The sounds and smells are as much a part of the thrill as is the rush of being pushed back into the seat when you push down the loud pedal (accelerator for the under educated).
I’ve been to races for 6 decades now. You can smell the exhaust, tires and hear it before you get to the track. You don’t get that from a station wagon or an SUV.
Even if I lost my vision, I’d only not be able to see how sleek and fast they look. My other senses would say it’s a real car.
Fortunately, even though it is ridiculous E-Fuels, at least they aren’t going to plug in a 911.
I still open the window of my car just to hear them drive away.
With many automakers transitioning from petrol-powered vehicles to electrified ones, Porsche and Ferrari are pursuing a new strategy by concentrating on the advancement of eFuels to preserve gas-powered engines. This decision follows the European Commission’s delay last week of the proposed 2035 ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles as the commission prepares to carve out a role for eFuels after 2035.
“Porsche and Ferrari’s status as national icons was enough to move their governments to challenge the EU plan last week just days before a scheduled vote,” Bloomberg wrote.
Germany’s Transport Minister Volker Wissing told the European Commission that he would withhold support for the approval of the new engine standards to end the sale of new combustion engine cars unless there were a plan for eFuels post-2035. Italy also threatened to fight the reforms.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday, discussing a comprise that would likely involve eFuels.
Germany and Italy are home to the world’s top sportscar manufacturers. There has been growing opposition against Brussels’ plan to ban petrol-powered engines. That’s because who in their right mind would purchase an all-electric Porsche 911?
The alternative route, mainly for sportscar brands, is the development of eFuels as a climate-neutral way to preserve combustion engines—just something about the sound of a twin-turbo V-8 or V-6 that captivates motorheads.
While most carmakers are pouring tens of billions into the EV shift, Porsche has also invested in an e-fuel plant in Chile, partly because the manufacturer doesn’t plan to make its 911 sports car with a plug. Operating combustion-engine vehicles in a climate-neutral way could also help speed up the decarbonization of the transport sector, according to a Porsche spokesman. Existing vehicle stock should be included in the push to lower CO2 emissions faster, he added. Ferrari has said it’s pursuing alternative fuels to keep making combustion-engine cars that preserve its heritage.
Proponents of e-fuels, say they’re essentially renewable electricity that’s been converted into a combustible, liquid fuel. To make it, scientists combine captured carbon dioxide with hydrogen that was split from water in a process powered by renewable energy, creating a synthetic hydrocarbon fuel. When burned in a combustion engine, the e-fuels create carbon dioxide. But since it was made from previously captured CO2, they argue it’s climate neutral.
We’ve outlined the growing resistance among vehicle brands and motorsport organizations that are firm in their belief the combustion engine will be sticking around for years to come.
A great sport has been overtaken by the environmentalists saying this is the future of clean energy and the usual word salad to prove their point. They have created some of the most cutting edge technology and speed you can possibly do. It was at the cost of fun, enjoyment of the car and the rush you get from all of your senses.
Before I get to the facts below, everyone likes the sound of a screaming V-12,10 or even 8 over a hybrid car. You can hear them before you see them and the noise and smell enhance your senses of excitement.
It’s not going to happen though, but here’s why it should:
The electric car’s biggest disadvantage on greenhouse gas emissions is the production of an EV battery, which requires energy-intensive mining and processing, and generates twice as much carbon emissions as the manufacture of an internal combustion engine. This means that the EV starts off with a bigger carbon footprint than a gasoline-powered car when it rolls off the assembly line and takes time to catch up to a gasoline-powered car.
One of the big unknowns is whether EV batteries will have to be replaced. While the EV industry says battery technology is improving so that degradation is limited, if that assurance proves overly optimistic and auto warranties have to replace expensive battery packs, the new battery would create a second carbon footprint that the EV would have to work off over time, partially erasing the promised greenhouse-gas benefits.
With governments now in the business of mandating electric vehicles, the battery challenge assumes a global scale. The majority of lithium-ion batteries are produced in China, where most electricity comes from coal-burning power plants.
The process of mining critical minerals is sometimes described in language that evokes strip mining and fracking, an inconvenient truth that is beginning to attract notice. “Electric cars and renewable energy may not be as green as they appear,” a 2021 New York Times article noted. “Production of raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel that are essential to these technologies are often ruinous to land, water, wildlife and people.” The Times has also warned that with global demand for electric vehicles projected to grow sixfold by 2030, “the dirty origins of this otherwise promising green industry have become a looming crisis.”
All of these CO2 metrics could come into play in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recently proposed rule that would require publicly traded companies to disclose the greenhouse gas emissions they produce directly, as well emissions produced indirectly through their supply chains around the world. While the implications aren’t clear yet, the new rule could standardize CO2 disclosures and transparency on EV carbon impacts, but some say that such calculations are nearly impossible for global contractors, and automakers would have to rely on the same kinds of estimates and modeling that are used now. Echoing a common concern, EV battery maker Nikola Corp. told the SEC that “some climate data is not readily available, complete, or definitive.”
As a result of these uncertainties, many consumers don’t understand the complexity of these analyses and may assume that their electric cars are literally zero-emissions, or that what matters most is that EVs are better for the environment and the precise degree is not that important.
more….
EV advocates are optimistic that in the coming decades electric cars will become cleaner as power grids are “decarbonized” and the industrialized world reduces its reliance on CO2-spewing fossil fuels, primarily coal and natural gas. Exactly how much cleaner is not easy to pinpoint. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, about 60% of the nation’s electricity was generated from coal and gas in 2021. In its Annual Energy Outlook, the agency projects those two fossil fuels will generate 44% of U.S. electricity by 2050.
But those percentages can be misleading. Even as the relative fuel proportions change over time, overall electricity demand is going up, so the total amount of fossil fuels actually burned in the mid-21st century goes down by only about 5%, according to EIA estimates. Future greenhouse gas emissions will depend on the number of EVs on the road and how electricity is generated, and those forecasts swing wildly. The EIA forecasts a mere 18.9 million EVs on U.S. roads in 2050, which is very conservative compared with advocacy group EVAdoption’s prediction of more than 25 million EVs on U.S. roads by 2030, only eight years away. BloombergNEF forecasts 125 million EVs on U.S. roads in 2040, up from 1.61 million at the end of last year, which would constitute about half the cars in this country.
“They’re making these forecasts that are basically licking your finger and sticking it up in the air,” David Rapson, a professor of energy economics at the University of California, Davis, who analyzes electric vehicle policy, said about California forecasts, which also applies more broadly. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”
Back to me.
Don’t try to tell me racing a hybrid is environmentally helpful when you fly around the world in many private and cargo jets each F1 weekend. Hauling the freight to one race is the pollution (carbon is not pollution) of all the cars in every race.
Cut us some slack and put real engines that we can hear coming, building our excitement.
Even the greenie drivers loved it when Fernando Alonso drove his championship winning Renault to some exhibition laps. They miss the sound also.
It’s not a step backwards, rather a step in the right direction.
Burying the blades of wind turbines because they can not be recycled. Very Earth friendly move by the climate crowd. They don’t tell you this part of the lie.
The Media
“Every human has four endowments—self awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom … The power to choose, to respond, to change.”
And in Germany, who was warned not to trust their energy needs by a recent president or they would lose their self-sustenance. Instead, they closed all the petroleum fired plants :
German Food & Ag Minister: Some Of You Will Have To Starve, And That Is A Sacrifice I’m Willing To Make
The zealots of the Sustainable Organic Church Of The Carbon Apocalypse are no longer hiding the fact that they expect many of you to die in order for them to achieve their green utopia. (Isn’t it weird how left-wing utopias always have such an awful body count?)
The German Food and Agriculture Minister, Cem Özdemir, recently stated that “Hunger is no argument against bio diversity and protection of the climate.”
And in Colorado:
Tens of thousands of Colorado residents found themselves unable to turn down their smart thermostats after energy company Xcel took control of them, citing an “energy emergency.”
On Tuesday, around 22,000 customers of Xcel, a Minnesota-based energy company who supplies customers across a number of western states, found themselves unable to turn down the temperature in their homes, despite the outside temperature reaching into the 90s, Summit News reported.
Building wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10 times the quantity of materials, compared with building machines using hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy to society.
Oil, natural gas, and coal are needed to produce the concrete, steel, plastics, and purified minerals used to build green machines. The energy equivalent of 100 barrels of oil is used in the processes to fabricate a single battery that can store the [energy] equivalent of one barrel of oil.
By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage.
In all the Democrats’ speeches and publicly stated positions over the past several years on renewable energy, the Green New Deal, etc., there is not the slightest indication from any so-called liberal environmental “expert” or elected officeholder that they have even the dimmest awareness of any of this. Instead, Democrat politicians and their Green supporters simply spout their vacuous, predictable, totally inaccurate party lines about “saving the earth before time runs out,” or the “evils of big energy corporations.” The smart money says that not one liberal environmental proponent—elected or otherwise— has even read this report, much less is able to refute any of it in a coherent, logical manner.
Delusions of Adequacy 
