As The Market For Electric Cars Stutters, Global Sales Of Petrol (gasoline) Hit New Record

 As regular readers will know Boggart Blog (in all our four flavours) has always been sceptical of the narrative around the transition from Internal Combustion Engines to battery powered electric cars, which according to the hype produced zero polluting emissions, could travel forever on a single battery charge (OK, that's a slight exaggeration - well if you insist we admit its hyperbole but no more so than most of the claims made by politicians, scientists and the media for electric cars,) cost far less to run and were just better in every way. Yes even when the lithium battery spontaneously combusts, which they do more often than Spinal Tap drummers, they burned hotter and for longer than petroleum fuelled cars.

The problem is they don't do any of these things, except the last one about spontaneously combusting, which electric car advocates don't like to talk about but us sceptics are delighted to raise the point at every opportunity. Apart from that electric vehicles are not zero pollution, the electricity that drives them will continue for several decades at least, to be produced by burning fossil fuels, sustainable sources like wind and solar have shown they just can't hack it and net zero is an unrealistic pipe dream, nuclear faces the same hostility from the Green Blob as oil and gas and hydro triggers the 'Save The Two Toed Toad' brigade.

So with stories breaking almost every day of falling demand for EVs and holding depots overflowing with used ones because nobody wants to buy a second hand car and then have to stump up the same amount of money for a new battery pack, it was no surprise to learn that with two days to go (well a month actually, although it is 29 December, figure are only in to the end of November,) 2023 is on course to break the record for the highest Petrol and Diesel sales ever.

Record Global Gasoline Consumption Defies IEA Forecast (& EV Hype)

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Global gasoline consumption hit a record 26.9 million barrels per day (bpd) this year, exceeding the 2019 peak and defying estimates that the last pre-pandemic year was the time when gasoline demand worldwide would peak. 

The data, reported by Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas, shows the latest figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The same agency, which has been strongly advocating for a faster energy transition for years, had predicted just this year that 2019 was the peak demand for gasoline globally.  

Back in June, in its Oil 2023 annual report, the IEA said that “Growth is set to reverse after 2023 for gasoline and after 2026 for transport fuels overall.” 

“Gasoline demand will be disproportionately impacted as EVs progressively replace vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE),” the IEA said, adding that:

“This means that the fuel is likely to exhibit the earliest and most pronounced peak in demand.”

And it also said that “Usage will never return to 2019 levels and the post- pandemic peak could come as early as 2023. Following a brief plateau, the decline is forecast to accelerate from 2026 onwards.” 

However, the IEA’s latest figures not only show that 2019 wasn’t the peak demand year for global gasoline consumption, but that demand in both 2023 and 2024 would surpass the pre-pandemic levels. ... Continue reading >>>

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With battery quality Lithium Carbonate regularly trading at above $US70,000 per ton the impact of this soaring cost of the essential material in batteries for electric vehicles is starting to impact the push to abandon fossil fuels . Worse still, analysts are predicting lithium prices will continue to rise as demand for electric cars and goods vehicles grows.

VW Audi Suspends Electric Vehicle Production Due To Battery Shortage
Today in “news that affects all electric vehicle manufacturers”, Audi has announced that it has suspended production of its e-Tron electric SUV effective February 20 and won’t resume untilfurther notice. The suspension has been a resolve of “resolving production issues”, which are mainly attributed to bottlenecks in battery supply, according to Business Insider.

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[ Energy Green Dreams ] ... [ Net Zero fantasy ] ... [ Net Zero reality ][ ... [ Technology rules you ] [ Electric car fireworks ] ... [ Electric car expensive ]

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[Daily Stirrer] ... [ Our Page on on Substack ]... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ] ... [ Blog Bulletin ]

The EV Graveyard Reckoning, Hardly Anyone Wants To Buy A Used One

 

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
via Zero Hedge

The market for used EVs is plummeting. What will car rental companies do with the used ones? Problems started in China but have spread to Europe and the US.

Hoot of the Day

“EV graveyards are a result of unconstrained capitalism.”

Mercy!

The Chinese government literally forced people to buy the damn things. Biden is attempting the same in the US.

That article is from August. Let’s flash forward to December 21 to see how things are going in Europe.

No One Wants Used EVs, Making New Ones a Tougher Sell Too

What started in China is not limited to China. A second Bloomberg article reveals No One Wants Used EVs, Making New Ones a Tougher Sell Too

Because most new vehicles in Europe are sold via leases, automakers and dealers who finance these transactions are trying to recover losses from plummeting valuations by raising borrowing costs. That’s hitting demand in some European markets that were in the vanguard of the shift away from fossil fuel-powered propulsion. Some of the biggest buyers of new cars, including rental firms, are cutting back on EV adoption because they’re losing money on resales, with Sixt SE dropping Tesla models from its fleet.

The problems are expected to intensify next year, when many of the 1.2 million EVs sold in Europe in 2021 will come off their three-year leasing contracts and enter the secondhand market. How companies tackle this problem will be key for their bottom lines, consumer confidence and ultimately decarbonization — including the European Union’s plan to phase out sales of new fuel-burning cars by 2035.

“There isn’t used-car demand for EVs,” said Matt Harrison, Toyota Motor Corp.’s chief operating officer in Europe. “That’s really hurting the cost-of-ownership story.”

“One has to slash prices significantly just to get customers to look at EVs,” said Dirk Weddigen von Knapp, who heads a group representing VW and Audi dealers.

... Continue reading >>> RELATED:

Soaring Lithium Prices Putting Transition To Electric Cars In Doubt
With battery quality Lithium Carbonate regularly trading at above $US70,000 per ton the impact of this soaring cost of the essential material in batteries for electric vehicles is starting to impact the push to abandon fossil fuels . Worse still, analysts are predicting lithium prices will continue to rise as demand for electric cars and goods vehicles grows.

VW Audi Suspends Electric Vehicle Production Due To Battery Shortage
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Tesla Stock Hit After German Regulator Warns Self-Driving Cars Are Unsafe

While the Tesla company and its Ubernerd founder Elon Musk have for several years been the darlings of the stock markets and the media, things may be changing. Like most technology startups, Tesla talk a good launch but fail to deliver real results. Since the cars launched to widespread admirationed at the elegant design, and open mouthed shock at the huge price tags and ...

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The electric car thing will not go away will it, ever since the science tits who work for Big Tech started proposing that electric cars are the future it has been proved many times in many ways that they are not. Cost, extremely limited range and safety are mong the reasons. And here as a Tesla goes up in smoke, is another ...

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[Daily Stirrer] ... [ Our Page on on Substack ]... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ] ... [ Blog Bulletin ]

California's Fleet Of Cruise Driverless Taxis Grounded As Experiment Halted Due To 'Public Safety Concerns'

 

            Chaos in San Francisco as driverless taxis lose GPS contact and suddenly stop        (picture:       lavanguardia.com )

California, as most people are aware, like to think of itself as the world's capital of  'Woke,' the state's lawmakers, academics and not least it population of showbiz celebrities like to think of themselves as progressive trendsetters leading the world to a technological utopia. So today's news that The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has suspended General Motors' Cruises autonomous vehicle and driverless testing permits across the state thus halting the experiment of having a fleet e driverless taxis patrolling the streets. DMV cited safety concerns and incidents in justification of the move following a series of incidents involving the electric vehicles, some of which resulted in injuries to drivers and pedestrians while others caused huge traffic jams (above).

"When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits," California DMV stated in a press release. 

The decision to suspend Cruise's operation was based on a number of considerations, including "manufacturer's vehicles are not safe for the public's operation" and "manufacturer has misrepresented any information related to the safety of the autonomous technology of its vehicles." 

DMV also cited a clause in its road safety approvals policy: " Any act or omission of the manufacturer or one of its agents, employees, contractors, or designees which the department finds makes the conduct of autonomous vehicle testing on public roads by the manufacturer an unreasonable risk to the public," in suggesting that Cruise had not been entirely honest in their presentations of safety data relating to testing of its autonomous taxis in controlled conditions and that the technology had not been ready for use on public roads.

All in all it has been a bad month for the Electric Vehicle fan club, on top of this story UK authorities are now backtracking on their initial claim by the Chief Fire Officer that he believed that the disastrous fire which destroyed 1500 vehicles in a car park at Luton Airport was started when a diesel powered Range Rover spontaneously combusted. A strong body of evidence has emerged identifying the culprit as a Land Rover Discovery Sport, a hybrid which has a powerful diesel motor as its main engine and a small electric motor and lithum ion battery pack for urban use.

Then there was the case of the £200,000 McLaren sports car which burst into flames a mile from the dealership's showroon as a prospective buyer took it for a test drive (full story: The Metro )  

And another item from today's breaking news reports that Tesla are being investigated by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) for fraudulently misrepresenting performance figures relating to drive rang per charge.

All we can say to Electric Car nerds who insist these self propelled bombs are "100% safe and effective," is, Oh dear. Never mind, fossil fuels will always get you where you want to go. 

RELATED:

Soaring Lithium Prices Putting Transition To Electric Cars In Doubt
With battery quality Lithium Carbonate regularly trading at above $US70,000 per ton the impact of this soaring cost of the essential material in batteries for electric vehicles is starting to impact the push to abandon fossil fuels . Worse still, analysts are predicting lithium prices will continue to rise as demand for electric cars and goods vehicles grows.

Electric Car Fireworks
The electric car thing will not go away will it, ever since the science tits who work for Big Tech started proposing that electric cars are the future it has been proved many times in many ways that they are not. Cost, extremely limited range and safety are mong the reasons. And here as a Tesla goes up in smoke, is another.

VW Audi Suspends Electric Vehicle Production Due To Battery Shortage
Today in “news that affects all electric vehicle manufacturers”, Audi has announced that it has suspended production of its e-Tron electric SUV effective February 20 and won’t resume untilfurther notice. The suspension has been a resolve of “resolving production issues”, which are mainly attributed to bottlenecks in battery supply, according to Business Insider.

Tesla Stock Hit After German Regulator Warns Self-Driving Cars Are Unsafe

While the Tesla company and its Ubernerd founder Elon Musk have for several years been the darlings of the stock markets and the media, things may be changing. Like most technology startups, Tesla talk a good launch but fail to deliver real results. Since the cars launched to widespread admirationed at the elegant design, and open mouthed shock at the huge price tags and ...

House battery to store energy will 'change entire infrastructure of the world' - or maybe not
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How long have those research grant phishing, statistics rigging, peer review fiddling sciencyheads been telling us the car of the future would be powered by electricity? This was despite their best efforts after Squillions of Dollars, Pounds, Euros and Yen only having produced a hybrid that required both an electric motor and an internal combusion unit to .

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The Pushback Goes Corporate: BMW Warns ICE Car Ban Poses Major Threat To European Automakers

 As the reality of EU and UK 'net zero' policies on authomobile manufacture and sales in the west starts to dawn on industry leaders, we see once again how China has played western leader for mugs, by paying lip service to their high minded but ultimately foolish and self destructive pledges on reducing CO2 emissions. While appearing to go along with the climate catastrophe scam and appearing to support globalist policies such as the transition to sustainable energy sources and the switch from petrol and diesel driven vehclies to battery powered forms of transport, China's government has positioned itself to control the market in battery technology while increasing its own CO2 output exponentially.

Now we see the first acknowledgement that while European car makers will not be able to compete in the Electric Vehicle market because they must buy essential raw materials from Chinese companies that also own the rival Chinese Electric Vehicle makers and will not be able to make or sell petrol and diesel powered cars because of politically motivated, virtue signalling bans on their manufacture and sale imposed by western governments.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The EU’s pledge to ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars and vans from 2035 poses an “imminent risk” to Europe’s car manufacturers, which are unlikely to win a looming EV price war with their Chinese competitors, BMW chairman Oliver Zipse has told the Financial Times.

“I want to send a message: I see that as an imminent risk,” Zipse said.

The executive, however, said BMW was in a better position to compete with the Chinese manufacturers, most of which are targeting buyers of cheaper and smaller electric vehicles.

Yet, “The base car market segment will either vanish or will not be done by European manufacturers,” Zipse told FT.

European Union member states in March approved an emissions regulation under which the bloc will end sales of new carbon dioxide-emitting cars and vans in 2035.

The new rules target 55% CO2 emission reductions for new cars and 50% for new vans from 2030 to 2034 compared to 2021 levels, as well as 100% CO2 emission reductions for both new cars and vans from 2035.

The landmark deal was made possible after Germany – the biggest economy, the biggest car market, and the biggest car manufacturer – sought and won an exemption for e-fuels. Germany wanted sales of new cars with internal combustion engines if they run on e-fuels to continue beyond 2035, and it got that exemption.

The slump in exports of Germany’s auto industry to China in the first quarter of 2023 could be the beginning of a new long-term trend of “strong disruption” in German-Chinese trade as China’s EV boom accelerates, researchers at the IW institute in Cologne said in a report in June.

“There appear to be strong disruptions playing out in the automotive sector, especially regarding China’s increasing importance as an exporter of electric cars,” the report’s authors wrote.

The west is committing suicide, led by leftist voters who vote with their emotions rather than engaging their brains, and are utterly incapable of using logic, reason, economics and (most importantly) physics.

This knowledge and the whole Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset plan has been known for at least ten years yet it is only now, as the reality that globalism will destroy them, that German manufacturers are finally waking up? The whole west is being de-industrialized as you must destroy it all to Build Back Better.  Remember the words of Bond villain lookalike klaus Schwab,"You will own nothing and be happy".

Then consider this:

“The Global Identity Project is designed to shift the global economy away from private ownership and into what the WEF calls an “access model” where you own nothing but rent goods and services from the world’s billionaires and billionaire corporations.”

15-Minute Cities Will Enslave the People

Blog/WEF

But some people are wise to it:

“Make no mistake, it’s not about your convenience, and it’s not about saving the planet. It will be a complete impoverishment and enslavement of all the people,” German MEP Christine Anderson said regarding the push for 15-minute cities. She’s right. The 15-minute city is marketed as a futuristic town where everyone will live within 15 minutes of all the services they will ever need. The globalists are promoting such cities as affordable, convenient, and virtuous as they combat climate change. The truth of the matter is that these cities are reminiscent of the Jewish ghettos during World War II or the Japanese internment camps in the US. They are designed to contain and control the people and inhabitants or should I say 'inmates' who will need permission from a government official to leave their assigned zone, even for a short period.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) claims that Paris will soon become a 15-minute city, and Milan and Melbourne are also running pilots to test this design. Every street will have a bike lane as it will be easier to reduce our access to cars. Reducing our access to personal vehicles will reduce our ability to travel outside of our 15-minute enclosures. Everyone will work within a 15-minute radius, their children will go to school within this 15-minute radius, and there will be no “need” to leave. The problem here is that they have the power to prevent people from leaving.

As Anderson said, we have seen that governments can easily implement climate emergency lockdowns, coerce people into taking unsafe medications and destroy the lives and careers of those who do not comply.

  “The looming existential threat of climate change and worsening income inequality require us to urgently rethink our existing cities, and rapid urbanization makes it imperative that we create a new and better city-building template for cities to house future city dwellers,” the website for the enclosures states.

Since governments have made homeownership completely unaffordable to many, they are marketing “accessory dwelling units” (ADUs) under 1,000 sq ft as a viable alternative to housing. They claim this will solve homelessness as well since we will all be completely equal. YOU WILL OWN NOTHING AND BE HAPPY.

The government will choose where we live and how we live. The globalists want us to rely solely on government, a government that they hope will be a united one-world unit. The majority will be the “have-nots.” The few elites at the top will prosper on their puppets in their doll house towns who they can play with like Sim characters.

Reason suggestd that the globalists will fail because they omit to take into account human nature, but unless a lot more of us start to push back har and soon, stopping them will only be achieved with blood on the streets. 

Soaring Lithium Prices Putting Transition To Electric Cars In Doubt
With battery quality Lithium Carbonate regularly trading at above $US70,000 per ton the impact of this soaring cost of the essential material in batteries for electric vehicles is starting to impact the push to abandon fossil fuels . Worse still, analysts are predicting lithium prices will continue to rise as demand for electric cars and goods vehicles grows.

VW Audi Suspends Electric Vehicle Production Due To Battery Shortage
Today in “news that affects all electric vehicle manufacturers”, Audi has announced that it has suspended production of its e-Tron electric SUV effective February 20 and won’t resume untilfurther notice. The suspension has been a resolve of “resolving production issues”, which are mainly attributed to bottlenecks in battery supply, according to Business Insider.

Tesla Stock Hit After German Regulator Warns Self-Driving Cars Are Unsafe

While the Tesla company and its Ubernerd founder Elon Musk have for several years been the darlings of the stock markets and the media, things may be changing. Like most technology startups, Tesla talk a good launch but fail to deliver real results. Since the cars launched to widespread admirationed at the elegant design, and open mouthed shock at the huge price tags and ...

House battery to store energy will 'change entire infrastructure of the world' - or maybe not
Another costly new product hailed as a breakthough in technology, this time a clutching-at-straws exercise from the failing electric car company Tesla, completely fails to live up to the hype under scrutiny. Hailed as a super battery, a mjor advance in battery technology that will change the world to store power for a household, it turns out to be nothing more than a streamined car battery. It will run the average home for about 2 hours.

Google Self Driving Car Can't Drive Itself
A lot of nerdy types have been getting very excited about the self - driving cars being developed by Google. Being nerdy they are not making such a fuss about the decent looking rides being developed by the likes of Mrecedes Benz, General Motors and Toyota. No, it's the Google wankermobile that turns them on.

It's The Car Of The Future - And It Runs On Petrol
How long have those research grant phishing, statistics rigging, peer review fiddling sciencyheads been telling us the car of the future would be powered by electricity? This was despite their best efforts after Squillions of Dollars, Pounds, Euros and Yen only having produced a hybrid that required both an electric motor and an internal combusion unit to .

Google Car Driverless Because No Sane Person Would Be Seen Dead In One
A few years ago Google boss Eric Schmidt said the company's aim was to get as close to creepy as they could without crossing the line. Well they had crossed the line long before he said that. The latest Google wirdness is the much hyped driverless car. It looks as if it was designed by a five year old. On the other hand it might be the ideal car for paedophiles who want to go cruising for jailbait.

How expensive are electric cars

Soaring Lithium Prices Putting Transition To Electric Cars In Doubt
With battery quality Lithium Carbonate regularly trading at above $US70,000 per ton the impact of this soaring cost of the essential material in batteries for electric vehicles is starting to impact the push to abandon fossil fuels . Worse still, analysts are predicting lithium prices will continue to rise as demand for electric cars and goods vehicles grows.

VW Audi Suspends Electric Vehicle Production Due To Battery Shortage
Today in “news that affects all electric vehicle manufacturers”, Audi has announced that it has suspended production of its e-Tron electric SUV effective February 20 and won’t resume untilfurther notice. The suspension has been a resolve of “resolving production issues”, which are mainly attributed to bottlenecks in battery supply, according to Business Insider.

Tesla Stock Hit After German Regulator Warns Self-Driving Cars Are Unsafe

While the Tesla company and its Ubernerd founder Elon Musk have for several years been the darlings of the stock markets and the media, things may be changing. Like most technology startups, Tesla talk a good launch but fail to deliver real results. Since the cars launched to widespread admirationed at the elegant design, and open mouthed shock at the huge price tags and ...

House battery to store energy will 'change entire infrastructure of the world' - or maybe not
Another costly new product hailed as a breakthough in technology, this time a clutching-at-straws exercise from the failing electric car company Tesla, completely fails to live up to the hype under scrutiny. Hailed as a super battery, a mjor advance in battery technology that will change the world to store power for a household, it turns out to be nothing more than a streamined car battery. It will run the average home for about 2 hours.

Google Self Driving Car Can't Drive Itself
A lot of nerdy types have been getting very excited about the self - driving cars being developed by Google. Being nerdy they are not making such a fuss about the decent looking rides being developed by the likes of Mrecedes Benz, General Motors and Toyota. No, it's the Google wankermobile that turns them on.

It's The Car Of The Future - And It Runs On Petrol
How long have those research grant phishing, statistics rigging, peer review fiddling sciencyheads been telling us the car of the future would be powered by electricity? This was despite their best efforts after Squillions of Dollars, Pounds, Euros and Yen only having produced a hybrid that required both an electric motor and an internal combusion unit to .

Google Car Driverless Because No Sane Person Would Be Seen Dead In One
A few years ago Google boss Eric Schmidt said the company's aim was to get as close to creepy as they could without crossing the line. Well they had crossed the line long before he said that. The latest Google wirdness is the much hyped driverless car. It looks as if it was designed by a five year old. On the other hand it might be the ideal car for paedophiles who want to go cruising for jailbait.

How expensive are electric cars

AI experts are increasingly afraid of what they’re creating
In 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had something to say: “AI is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.” Pichai’s comment was met with a healthy dose of skepticism. But nearly five years later, it’s looking more and more prescient. College professors are tearing their hair out because AI text generators can now write essays as well as your typical undergraduate ...

Will The Online Safety Bill Protect Free Speech Or Assist Censorship?
The UK Online Safety Bill is presented to parliament for its final reading next week. Secretary of State for Digital Culture Michelle Donelan announced this morning that the controversial “legal but harmful” clause has been removed and thus free speech has been protected. Anti self-harm activists and groups opposinthe Gay BLTQ movement's push for paedophile equal rights and the sexualisation of children don’t like it one little bit, though free-speech enthusiasts should take no comfort from that. The Bill puts into legal jeopardy anything that creates “a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of adults in the United Kingdom”.

Green dreams of Heat Pumps Continue reading >>>
When Boris Johnson revealed the UK Government plans for achieving 'net zero' carbon emissions by 2050 it emerged the much teased clean, green replacement for gas boilers as our main source of domestic heating is to be heat pumps. The Daily Stirrer counters the pseudo-scientific bollocks and reveals this 'new technology has been around for a hundred years.

European Rebellion Against Enforced Swith To EVs Gathering Support

Authored by Duggan Flanakin via RealClear Wire,

You may not know it if you rely solely on American media, but there is a growing revolt across much of Europe against Net Zero mandates in general and electric vehicle (EVs) mandates in particular.

It seems that, led by luxury carmakers, the future may be bright for the venerable internal combustion engine if new synthetic fuels technologies can produce an affordable replacement for gasoline and diesel fuels.

The revolt had been brewing ever since Europe got a wakeup call with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that upset the Net Zero applecart and led even Germany to reopen coal-fired power plants. Still, the EU last November had struck a provisional deal on a new vehicle emissions law that would have banned the sale of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2035.

Two months later, though, the new Meloni government in Italy began to raise objections. The forced transition to EVs has already hit the Italian auto industry with job cuts, leading Transport Minister Matteo Salvini to argue that it makes no sense to put thousands of jobs at risk when there are plenty of reasons to keep ICE vehicles on the road with a carbon-neutral fuel.

Italy’s balking opened the door for German Finance Minister Christian Lindner to switch his government’s position to demand an exception for hydrogen-derived, carbon-neutral synthetic e-fuels (produced by electrolysis with added carbon) that can power ICE vehicles. Porsche, which has invested $75 million in a pilot plant to make e-fuels, and Ferrari could preserve their rich heritage and iconic models and still comply with zero-emissions requirements with e-fuels.

German Transport Minister Volker Wissing agreed, stating that, "We need e-fuels as there is no alternative if we want to operate our vehicle fleet in a climate-neutral way. Whoever is serious about climate-neutral mobility must keep all technological options open and also use them. I don't understand this fight against the car and why people want to ban some technologies."

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has long objected to the EU ban and had pledged to do “anything” to stop the “pseudo-green idea by rich countries and bureaucrats from Brussels” to ban gasoline and diesel engines. Polish families, he contended, cannot afford these expensive vehicles, and an ICE ban would cause Polish firms producing car components for well-known global brands to suffer irreparable harm.

As by simply abstaining from a final vote on the hard ICE vehicle ban and forced switch to EVs, Germany could have killed the proposed EU legislation, the European Commission agreed to draft a compromise to allow the sale of ICE vehicles capable of running on e-fuels after 2035. Environmental groups objected, claiming that – because gasoline and diesel will still be available to power older vehicles – owners of e-fuel capable vehicles will cheat and fill up with gasoline.  ... Continue reading >>>

 

 

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Ford Warns Electric Cars Are Only For The Rich

[ Technology rules you ] ... [ Tesla end game ] ... [ Electric cars expensive ] ... [Electric car fireworks ] ... [ Extinction rebellion redux ]

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Brussels Cancels Looming Ban on Internal Combustion Engine Cars

 

Picture: Fords of Winsford

Wednesday 29 March 2023

The UK's plans to achieve net zero ahead of any other developed nation was dealt a blow yesterday and the proposed ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by 2030 was thrown into chaos when the EU Commission (de facto ruling committe of the European Union,) scrapped its own proposed restrictions on the sale of petrol and diesel fuelled cars after opposition from Germany's powerful auto industry.

Senior figures in the industry warned that British rules due to take effect in 2030 are untenable following the European climbdown, which will allow internal combustion engines as long as they burn carbon-neutral petrol alternatives.

The European Union will go ahead with its ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035 but will now allow these so-called e-fuels, which have been reclassified as carbon neutral following a backroom compromise forced on it by the German negotiators on Tuesday night.

Sources in Brussels and London suggested the UK government was considering following the Commission’s lead by also allowing an e-fuel exemption. British carmakers Aston Martin and McLaren are already understood to be examining e-fuels as an option for powering future models.

Critics of the Government’s Net Zero plans claimed a victory for common sense on learning of the EU decision, with some going so far as to demand a total review of 'net zero' policy is needed. Ecoloons representing Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil have said that it could slow down electric vehicle adoption although recent sales figures suggest take up of EVs is declining as owners become aware it is almost imposssible to offload an electric car in the second hand market.

The former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “The 2030 deadline for the elimination of petrol and diesel engine cars in the U.K. is simply not achievable. Unless we delay, we hand a massive boost to the Chinese car manufacturers. They are already dominant.”

Britain is to ban the sale of new cars that run on petrol and diesel only in seven years’ time under plans drawn up by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson but this policy now looks to be in jeopardy.

The EU’s e-fuel exemption will allow a synthetic alternative to petrol which is made by mixing carbon dioxide captured from the air with hydrogen obtained by splitting water molecules using renewable energy.

Currently this is expected to be more expensive than petrol, however, Benedetto Vigna, the boss of Ferrari, said this week that he expects the price to fall as the market grows and economies of scale become viable. Industry experts believe synthetic petrol and diesel could be the beginning of a return to sanity that would allow carmakers to focus on collaborating with chemical companiesproducing lower-cost e-fuels instead of expensive battery powered cars.

Andrew Graves, a car industry veteran and professor at the University of Bath, said: “I think it’s a very exciting technology that we’re looking at, so that we can not only use it for things like motorsport, but we can also more importantly use it for keeping existing vehicles on the road. I think there’s a lot of things that the Government needs to look at before it goes hell bent on just having a blanket ban on diesel or petrol.”

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Buyers Going Cold On Electric Cars As Costs Rocket

 

Several articles questioning the feasibility of the UK governments policy to ban the sale of new Internal Combustion Engined (ICE) cars after 2030, as part of their 'net zero' drive, have appeared in the pages of Britain's most popular news websites recently. The authors have gone to great lengths to the problems and issues with EVs, problems that writers in alt_media have highlighted for years, some providing excellent technical analysis, some displaying  wide knowledge of mining and processing the minerals essential to battery manufacture and others like myself focusing on the nonsensical economics behind the case for electrification of personal transport. Unlike these amateur (in the truest sense,) efforts the mainstream journalists rarely follow through with any analysis or conclusions, are they hoping to prepare the way for a change in Government policy?

A good example of this dawning sense of reality, wrtiten by Howard Mustoe appeared in The Telegraph today:

Motorists are rapidly losing interest in electric cars as the cost of power surges and petrol and diesel prices continue to fall, the AA has suggested.

The proportion of car buyers considering purchasing an electric model this year has slumped to less than a fifth compared with one in four a year ago, its research found.

It came as the boss of Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall, warned that the middle classes cannot afford the cost of electric cars without the support of state subsidies.

Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis, said: “The most significant problem of electrification is the affordability for the middle classes.

“That's what we are now fighting against – how fast can we reduce the costs to bring the EV [electric vehicle] to the level of affordability that people can pay for without subsidies.”

The up-front cost of plug-in vehicles has become unaffordable for many as rampant inflation makes models even more expensive. For example, a Volkswagen Golf costs from around £25,000, while a similarly-sized all-electric VW ID.3 starts at about £36,400. Prices for Nissan's battery-powered Leaf start at £29,000, while its combustion engine model Juke starts at £20,700.

At the same time, falling prices at the pump means many drivers are holding onto petrol and diesel cars for longer.

As it is; next year there is a Government quota for 22% of car sales to be EVs which will increase up to 2030 when the sale of conventional ICE cars will be banned. At which point comparisons of EV and ICE cars will become irrelevant as there will be no ICE cars available. The logical conclusion is that unless there is a rapid and significant change in technology, pricing and electric supply in the UK and if current Government car policy remains unchanged; the UK will see a massive decline in private car ownership and usage. It is difficult not to conclude that this is the unspoken and unstated objective of the net-zero powers that be.

If this happens it will be a monumental social change, much of the UK has grown up as the ‘Top Gear’ generation with cars at the cornerstone of life. Much of Holiday, Leisure tourism and social life centres around the car. Without a car life in many rural areas becomes quite difficult. There is little sign that this or a possible future Labour Gov will change this EV car policy, in which case it will lead to an incredible seismic shift for the worse in the lives of most ordinary people. but the whole of the Green Lunacy fad often seems to be an attack on the less well off.so much for all that political pontificating about equality and inclusiveness.

  After years of unchallened hype about EVs being the future of road transport and how it is necessary to shift from ICEs to battery driven cars it seems the public and the media have at last realised how an EV can easily morph into a wonky proposition and why, after electric cars first hit the road 30 years before the first petrol car was driven, electrics have never been able to compete.

The battery guarantee is three years for the most affordable models, or eight years in case a Tesla (providing it does not incinerate the car's occupants sooner). And yes, "we" know the price for the battery replacement is half of the whole car price but for used electrics the price of a new battery pack is often greater than the value of the car,.

  Owners need a driveway and a garage with a charging point and WiFi - or a lot of spare time.

And when - during the winter - the temperature drops below - 10 °C, the driving range of the car halves. The range also halves if the temperature is 0 °C outside, and "we" drive with the cabin heater on.If the driver is prepared to risk hypothermia the range only drops 25%.

If the temperature outside is - 10 °C and "we" drive with the cabin heater on, the range is only 25%, and "we" better stay at home?

"We" also need to make sure to live within few kilometres from some fast chargers, and the routes to all our destinations do include one or more fast chargers.

There are too many shadows lurking from behind an EVs. It would be nice to drive a car that don't spew noxious fumes, but what if the battery fail after three years? That's from £ 15 to 20K. What if "we" find all the few chargers on the motorway either busy or out of service? What if we are caught in a winter blizzard? What if run out of power on the motorway - can't "we" have the equivalent of a Jerry can? The number of "what ifs" is still uncomfortably high for "us" to buy an EV and be happy and relaxed.

And now the cost of running them is rising and governments are looking for ways to plug the hole in revenue that will be left by the loss of taxes on fuel etc. those costs are only going to rise even more.

But don't get me wronmg here, I am not anti - EV per se: I think they have a great futures as buses and taxis, for urban delivery vehicles and as city runabout for those who can afford a very expensive second car.

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The Problems With Electric Vehicles (continued)

from Quora:

I’ve heard people worry about charging them, and they are quite right to worry about that. The usual counter argument is that “I can always find a place to charge and they’re putting in more”.

Well yes, possibly you can always find a place to charge whilst electric cars make up three per cent of those on the roads, but as soon as electric cars become the norm and not the exception, it’s going to be problematic.

Seen from a logistical point of view the problem is in the transportation of the fuel. Liquid fuels can be placed in a tanker and distributed that way. You can’t do that with electricity. It needs to be transported down wires. If all thirty-two and a half million cars on UK roads became electric, and only one per cent want charging, that’s 325,000. That’s smaller than the number of electric cars on the roads today for sure, since it’s about 1,000,000 (give or take) but again if the number wanting charging is only one per cent, that’s only ten thousand. There are in fact about 42,000 charging points across the UK but not all cars can use all points (some are private, some need adaptors) and so just to get to one per cent of all charging needs we need another 273,000 charging points. All of them need to tap from a live grid fed by a generating station.

Well, logistically, I suppose it can be done if you are determined enough but now we run into a technical problem. Because of this:

I total is the sum of currents for those nodes. Put simply, the wires between nodes 1&2 and 7&8 have to cope with the currents of R1, R2, and R3. Between 2&3 and 6&7 they only have to cope with R2&R3 and between 3&4 and 5&6 only that of R3.

That’s the sort of idea. Multiply that several times for several nodes and much lower resistances and you’ll see that some pretty big wires are going to be needed there if you don’t want them to melt. Having both worked with and made big wires, the adjectival phrase there is “not cheap”.

Plus we’ve got a finite current source. It might be nice to think that magic electric fairies will provide us with enough current to satiate our every need, but I’ve been in electrical and mechanical since 1982 one way or another and I’ve never laid eyes on such a creature yet. The Set-on-Fire fairy though, she turns up regularly if you aren’t careful. At some point whatever’s feeding the current will be topped. There are a number of ways you can do this but the easiest is a bangy fuse.

Then we’ve got the problem of what’s generating it. Wind and solar won’t cut it. The Germans are finding that out at the moment because the Energiewendepolitik they’re pursuing has managed to shove up the cost of the electricity and the carbon footprint. Krass. Danke, Tante Angela.

This means that we are either going to have lots of nukes (Greta says no) or lots of burny/bangy things (Greta says no again) making steam to rotate some big spinnies to get some electron-juice out. More than we have now. This means that we may have cleared up local pollution by running cars with no emmisions, but we’ve transferred it to central locations instead. The only other alternative is to use our cars for essential journeys and public transport for getting about and to and from work. Which is what I do now; hey, how bloody green am I without knowing it? Well, what’s a boy to do once he’s found that out? I’ve got a day off and so down to Next it is to get my ethnic skirt and sandals.

Then we come to the battery itself. I’m having this argument that the battery materials may have changed but the technology has not. Any battery you care to name provides a flow of charge that needs a couple of plates separated by an electrolyte. The technological equivalence of the Cruickshank battery of 1802 and the shiniest newest one coming out of a factory in China is therefore so close to 1 in the working principle that arguments are moot. The fact that we can stuff a microprocessor into the Foo-Qingbig battery is neither here nor there; the principle of charge and discharge is just the same as Cruickshank used in 1802 and Planté used in 1859.

One thing that is moving the equivalence to <1 is one of the reasons the microprocessor is there. Car makers are building grace capacities into their batteries. You can do this by linking together discrete lithium cells some of which don’t get used until others deteriorate. This means for years the battery won’t have any noticeable degradations. However, once the grace is used you’ll start to see this:

which is a graph of some Cadex played about with in their labs and is pretty much what we’d expect to see from a normal test. What you’re doing when you recharge a battery is shoving a current through it backwards; the anode becomes the cathode and vice-versa. Every time you do this you cause a tiny bit of irreversible damage to the battery. Tiny bits sum up to honking great bits. What we normally find is a gentle slope to 80% capacity, then a knee, where the rate of degradation becomes sharper. Shall I tell you that there isn’t a full understanding of the complete chain of chemical reactions in how a battery operates? We know how to work the materials, but we don’t fully understand why it does what it does in the reaction process. Sometimes we get surprises. Sometimes they’re bad ones.

The act of building in grace capacities is good as far as longevity is concerned but bad as far as battery mass is concerned because it means bigger, heavier batteries and adding more mass to a vehicle means more inertia to overcome from rest. It also increases the costs of the batteries.

So it’s not that we think they’re a scam. What we do think is that the Tesla Fanboys are hyping it up too much and they aren’t looking at how vehicles are used and the logistical and technical problems if instead of ten cars on the street being electric, a hundred are.

Now, people think I’m anti-electric vehicle. I’m not. I’ve made and repaired hundreds since 1982. Electric vehicles are great for certain jobs; can’t have a reach truck in a warehouse on any other power. Trams are quick and unobtrusive and a much better ride than busses (and I’m currently having the argument about whether it’s busses or buses too, you buses-nazis can all knob off because it’s either and busses was the way I did it at school and nobody red-penned that in a grammar, so stuff it up your arses without Vaseline) with their horrible Diesel knock, and all-electric trains you can hardly tell when you’re moving, unlike Diesel-electric when you certainly know when they’re setting off.

If you are a housewife who drops the kids off at school, then does an hour or so of poncing about in Lidl and seeing to your elderly granny, an electric car (providing you can charge it at home) is great for you. You’ll have less maintenance to do on it and it may well be cheaper than petrol. If you are somebody that depends on their car for getting round multiple sites though, spread far and wide, knocking up lots of miles per day, it’s not. You are going to need to fill it with six gallons of bangy hydrocarbons to get through your day and back home.

That latter isn’t what we’re being told, though. We’re being told that electric cars are the cure for all our transport evils, and they aren’t. That’s where the objections are coming from.

 

SOURCE

News Headlines - 20 December 2022

Deutsche Bank: “A Certain Degree of Eco-Dictatorship Will Be Necessary”

20 December 2022 3:45 PM

Izabella Kaminska, formerly the Editor of the FT’s Alphaville and now the Editor of the Blind Spot, has flagged up an alarming passage in a document published in January 2021 by Deutsche Bank Research entitled ‘What we must do to Rebuild’. Eric Heyman has written the section about the tough choices the EU must face it if’s to meet its goal of achieving ‘climate neutrality’ by 2050 – Net Zero, in other words – and says the following:

The impact of the current climate policy on people’s everyday lives is still quite abstract and acceptable for many households. Climate policy comes in the form of higher taxes and fees on energy, which make heating and mobility more expensive. Some countries have set minimum energy efficiency standards for buildings or similar rules in other areas. However, climate policy does not determine our lives. We take key consumption decisions, for example whether we travel at all, how much we travel and which means of transport we use, whether we live in a large house or a small apartment and how we heat our homes, how many electronic devices we have and how intensely we use them or how much meat and exotic fruit we eat. These decisions tend to be made on the basis of our income, not on climate considerations.

If we really want to achieve climate neutrality, we need to change our behaviour in all these areas of life.  ...  Continue reading >>>