Cold Facts About Electric Vehicles Lets Not Get Too Excited

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 Not everyone agrees with the Electric Vehicle or EV fad.  Among the most prominent folks are Toyota and Honda both being world renowned automobile manufacturers. Both are from Japan and Toyota remains the largest car manufacturer in the world.
Yes the EVs may turn out to be a fad. Here is why I believe the EVs may not last. The existence of the EVs (like the phasing out of coal for power generation) is being enforced by the "rules based" new world order and by the 'force of law'. Not by market forces.
The "rules based" new world order of the World Economic Forum (for example) has convinced banks to not lend money to finance the construction of cheaper coal fired power plants. Coal still provides the cheapest source of energy to make electricity.  But they say coal pollutes the environment so the "rules based" new world order will not fund coal fired power plants. 
In many places around the world countries and states have announced that ICE (internal combustion engines burning petrol and diesel) will be totally banned by 2035, 2040 etc.
Believe me folks this is just a gimmick for the World Economic Forum types to make more money for themselves. It will not succeed. But before it fails (maybe two or three decades down) YOU will be poorer but the world elites will be richer.
It will fail because it interferes with the natural movement of the free market. The free market is basically the freedoms that you and I must have to choose whatever it is we wish to buy or consume. Its my life and its my money - I decide what I want to consume. This in turn determines that greatest gift the universe has bestowed on mankind - the price mechanism. What is a fair price? Demand, supply equilibriums etc. They wish to interfere with this free expression of choice. They want to enforce market behaviour.
Hence they will fail.

Back to these two videos. The laws of physics determine that when your vehicle weighs one ton, no matter if it is an EV, petrol driven, a bullock cart, horse cart, donkey cart or jet powered, a one ton vehicle will require the same amount of energy, travelling at the same speed, to travel a same distance from A to B (from your house to work). This is a basic law in physics. You cannot change the laws of physics. The universe is governed by the laws of physics.
So if you replace your petrol car with an EV you will not have a petrol tank anymore in your car. But you must add an extra tank of petrol at the electric power station to generate an extra "tankful" of electricity to move one ton of vehicle from A to B. 
But looking at the facts and the evidence presented here, the EV will need much more energy (the total amount) than your petrol driven car. There will be power losses in bringing the electric power (to charge the battery in your EV) from the power station to your house. This can neutralise whatever "efficiencies" that your EV may have over a petrol engine.
Then according to these two videos, the energy consumed, the pollution caused, the toxic materials produced, the environmental damage caused by mining for the new materials in your EV - to manufacture the highly toxic and highly corrosive batteries for your EV  is far, far more damaging than drilling for oil, refining petrol and burning it in your petrol engined car.
What is most interesting is the honest and scientific study by Volkswagen (in the video) which shows that for the first 60,000 km of its existence an EV is more polluting and less energy saving than a petrol car. The EV begins to claw back some advantages only after the first 60,000 kilometres. That is about three to five years of driving. These two videos are short and worth your time.

 


 
 


The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.By Syed Akbar Ali 

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