Fox News. Search it on the web and you’ll find a number of anti-EV articles and stories slanted a certain way. Despite this, when Fox News Digital reporter Megan Myers emailed me to ask a few questions about my experiences with EVs, I immediately agreed to it. This, I thought, was a great opportunity. Fast forward a week or so, and Myers published the article with the title “EV owner and car enthusiast says all electric push was ‘foolish,’ predicts hybrids will be better transition.” It’s a somewhat misleading headline, but I’m still thrilled I did the interview. Here’s why.
First things first, let’s talk about the headline. It states that I think America’s EV push was foolish, when really I was saying that ignoring hybrids to the extent that many automakers did was foolish. Hybrids represent a great way to get as many people driving efficient vehicles as quickly as possible. And yet, companies like GM decided to skip them in favor of EVs, only to backtrack as EV growth started to slow. I’ve discussed this ad nauseam before, so I don’t need to cover old ground, but the point is: Ignoring hybrids was not smart, and we need more good ones.
But let’s move beyond the headline, because the interview was about a whole lot more. In fact, you can watch the whole thing right here; to Fox News’ (technically Fox Business’) credit, they let me talk. They didn’t do much cherrypicking and they didn’t interject their own thoughts — they just ran it like I said it:
OK, now let’s look at the actual written article. The story’s lede is:
The rapid push to adopt electric vehicles (EVs) as the primary mode of transportation in American society is slowing and one auto expert and car enthusiast predicts hybrid vehicles will be the way forward.
OK, this isn’t quite what I was saying. I think pushing for EVs as the primary mode of transportation is still happening; it’s just that the growth of EVs is slowing (it’s still growing quickly, but not as quickly as before). But I do think hybrids are a great option, especially to skeptics. This is hardly a novel or controversial view.
Let’s keep reading:
Tracy said he is a proponent of EVs, but also described himself as a diehard gasoline car fan, and was candid about the upsides, as well as the downsides, to owning an EVs.
This is exactly what I was going for when I took the interview. I know that many people who read Fox News are not fans of EVs, and may love gas. So do I! There’s nothing like rowing through my Jeep Wrangler’s five-speed manual and listening to that four-liter engine under the hood. I’m not here to push an agenda, I just happen to own a few EVs, and I’m going to tell you about their upsides and downsides — I’m going to keep it real. The story continues:
Tracy said the practicality of an EV depends on an individual’s circumstances, what kind of driving they do and where they live. He believes it will be a long time before the U.S. has the infrastructure and consumer compliance to completely switch over to EVs, especially because one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption is charging availability. For drivers who don’t have access to an EV charging station where they live, for example, he said a hybrid is the way to go.
Then they quote me:
“I think, ultimately, the push is to reduce CO2 emissions,” Tracy said. “That means independent of whatever method you use to get there, we’ve got to reduce emissions. So some automakers are focusing on hybrids, some automakers are focusing on electric cars. The overall goal, though, is to reduce emissions through whatever means necessary.”
Then Fox says that I think more hybrids are coming soon because “the marketplace has spoken.” I think that’s mostly true. The story goes on:
“The interest in electric cars is still there, it’s still growing, but it’s not growing as fast as it did before and that indicates that people want hybrids,” he said. “A lot of automakers…they said ‘No, we’re done with hybrids, we’re going straight to electric cars.’That, I think was a bit foolish. People are not ready.”
So that’s where that quote from the headline comes from. The piece continues:
“Not everyone’s ready to go fully electric, and everybody knows that,” he added. “But offering hybrids, I think is where we’re going in the near term and it’s going to be a combination of fully electric cars — and for many people that’s a great solution — and it’s going to be hybrids. I think between those two, it’s going to eventually converge to electric, but you’ll have hybrids in the interim as the infrastructure builds up.”
The article then says I own eight cars (which is what I came up with off the top of my head; I might actually own more — things have gotten out of hand), including a Nissan Leaf and a BMW i3. Then the story mentions many of the advantages there are to EV ownership, quoting me:
“They’re great on maintenance, they’re fun to drive, they’re cheap, and you can get them cheaply because of federal rebates,” he said. “If you have a place to charge, they’re fantastic. Now, some of the downsides, of course, the infrastructure isn’t perfect, and especially if you don’t own a Tesla, there’s some planning that you’re going to have to factor into any trip. If you want to buy a new one, even with rebates, they’re a little bit pricier, but they’re basically getting there in terms of cost parity.”
Note that by “they’re cheap” I meant cheap to operate. Still, their prices — especially on the used market — are dropping rapidly.
The article is quite long, and I suggest you all read it, but I’m just going to include a couple more quotes in here:
Tracy said it is important that people weigh factors in their lifestyle, including the EV infrastructure in the community and the type of driving they do, before they buy an EV. But, he argues that an EV is a great option for people simply commuting to and from work every day.”
The story includes a quote wherein I say the public charging experience really should be broken into two groups: Tesla and non-Tesla, since the former’s experience is generally much smoother due to the Supercharger infrastructure. Then there’s this quote about maintenance:
You don’t have to do an oil change ever, you don’t have to even do brakes pretty much ever because it uses the motor as a regenerative brake, so it slows you down using the motor instead of the actual brake pads…there are some challenges, but man, there are some real benefits, too.
[…]
You won’t have dumb things like [dealing with] the transmission failing and camshaft position sensors failing, it’s just that much simpler to maintain.
Finally, I want to share this quote, which I know assuages some fears that many EV skeptics have:
“If you don’t feel like doing it, if you don’t feel like driving an EV, no one’s taking your gasoline car away,” he said. “That’s not going to happen. You may find that the new cars at the dealership, more or them are going to become electrified. You might have to choose a hybrid, which you will like, by the way, I guarantee it. If you’re going from a gas car to a hybrid, especially if it’s an automatic transmission, they’re great cars these days, so… it’s not really going to feel like a hit as long as there’s a hybrid option.”
(Note: I wish I had acknowledged that California’s 2035 rules are indeed rather strict, though again, they apply to new cars, and don’t involve ripping your existing gas cars from you, and they do allow for some number of plug-in hybrids — not all BEVs).
I am thrilled that Fox let me talk, and didn’t try bending my words. To be able to have a reasonable discussion about EVs — to extoll their virtues without much slant or pushback, and to be able to speak candidly about their drawbacks — on Fox News is huge. I reached a large and new audience of mostly conservative readers/viewers, and I was able to tell them positive things about EVs on a website that often includes somewhat unfair anti-EV slants. This is a big win in my book.
I have received a bit of criticism for going on Fox, but talking with the news outlet was a chance to reach a crowd that may spend much of its time in a bubble. Lots of us live in our own internet bubbles/echo chambers; it’s a huge problem with the world today. Branching out beyond those borders can yield great things.
But beyond that, I remember being a reporter for a heavily politically-leaning media company (Gawker), so I know that not everyone at a given outfit thinks the same way. And it turns out, my line of thinking ended up being true, because — aside from the headline, which, like I mentioned, doesn’t really represent my views — Megan’s article about my experiences with electric cars is fair. In fact, as a result of Fox running what I said without slanting it, anti-EV folks are posting comments ripping on me, but luckily there are EV — most likely Tesla fans — in there fighting the good fight. Just look at this:
Still, of course, Tesla fans are going to Tesla-fan, and plenty wrote some equally absurd comments as the EV skeptics:
Ah, the ol’ classic all-or-nothing argument that just leads to lots of people continuing to drive gas-guzzlers instead of fuel-sipping hybrids. Can’t win ’em all.
Still, the comments aren’t as bad as you might think they’d be on Fox, and the fact that my thoughts were fairly relayed to the news outlet’s audience without being spun (other than a bit in the headline) — that’s just awesome. I’ll admit, I was a little concerned about that at first.
Good job. Each “side” is waiting for the other to disappear and that is not going to happen. At some point we will rediscover bipartisanship and compromise, but it’s going to remain a needless frustration until then. The middle really needs to engage in primaries buts it’s the bickering that pushes them away.
As someone in the middle who does vote in the primaries, it’s extremely frustrating. In my state, and many others, you only get to pull one particular party’s ballot. If there are candidates on each side you’d like to support in different races, you can’t. You have to pick which one you think is more important to support, or in the closest race. It’s really disheartening. If you declare yourself an independent, you get to vote for fuck-all in the primaries.
Unfortunately the state parties make those choices. The parties in my state (LA) have changed the rules so many times over the past decade I wasn’t sure who would be on my presidential primary ballot until I got to my polling place this time around. Previously, registered independents could vote in either primary, the GOP closed their primary a couple of cycles ago and now the Democrats have followed. For everything but President the day of the general election is the primary here (jungle primary, every candidate for every office on one ballot, top two go to run-off, if you get 50%+1 win outright). I’ve always thought that was a pretty good system, but our new governor killed that for 2026 onwards as one of his very first actions, so moving to normal primaries for most everything moving forward to ensure that we get what everyone else does: the most extreme version of party politics.
Ugh.
That is all.
The entire system (including the constitution, albeit not on purpose) is set up so that we can only have two parties. If a third party was to make it through, it would merely displace one of the existing parties – we’d still have a two-party system.
The two-party, winner-takes-all dilemma is what is going to end the US, and our constitutional fetishism makes us unable to fix it.
This is a good opportunity to remind people that some of the major news channels have a business specific sub-outlet. When they do it’s invariably superior in quality of reporting to the main channel. They tend to have pooled headline writers skilled in generating clicks, which is why that part sucked.
It’s not surprising to find good reporting on non-business issues on Fox Business, CNBC, etc., even if their main site is crap on the same subject. This was generally a business topic, but there was plenty of room for them to run on the social aspects and they didn’t.
Ignore the editorial/opinion pages and the Wall Street Journal has historically been one of the best sources of reporting on non-business stuff in America. When I was slightly less crazy it was my daily newspaper. Business hinges on knowing about the world accurately, so the quality of reporting tends to reflect that need.
I’ve noticed this too. It’s remarkable how strange some of the opinion pieces are, given the quality of the actual reporting.
As an example, Daniel Pearl was a WSJ reporter when he was kidnapped and brutally executed. The Evan that keeps coming up about Russia is Evan Gershkovich, a WSJ reporter jailed in Russia. WSJ foreign desk still one of the best on planet. But yeah, their editorial stuff is just bananas most of the time.
Yeah, you can’t feed blatant lies to the people making the decisions.
Once you start doing that, you get leaders like Maduro or Musk.
Eh, I do think even the well intentioned opinion doesn’t quite nail it. The mistake wasn’t automakers giving up on hybrid to go all in on EVs, it was automakers not wholesale adopting hybrids a decade ago. We’d be much further ahead on every adoption curve if that were the case. You can’t give up on something if you haven’t even done it
I’m sure there’s a lot more blame deserved for automakers virtually abandoning small vehicles in North America. It’s a space that’s largely ignored where much of the world will also downsize traditional ICE for those who can’t afford/justify EV without complexities of Hybrid/PHEV.
But just look at the Maverick hybrid almost 40mpg from a truck. Is it that much more complex than a turbo 4banger?
My 2000my sedan could barely break 30. Yes small cars would be more efficient but the MPG gain from a hybridizing all the generic greyscale SUV’s would be great.
Man explains things to bread loaf. Bread loaf did not comprehend.
A series hybrid is the way forward. My calculations came up with a Model S that can run 80 mph, all day, at 38 mpg. At 70 mph, it will get 45 mpg. You can plug it in if you like, but it wouldn’t be necessary and would eliminate range anxiety.
A series hybrid will always be a little less efficient in steady highway cruising than mechanical drive.
Not when the power is supplied by a 100 HP +/- steady state ICE with 50% thermal efficiency.
It might be more efficient if the mechanical drive only engages as a direct drive with no additional gearing, just a clutch. The ICE would need a reasonable peak efficiency sweet spot to make full use of that coupling.
I think that if an engine were tuned to be hyper efficient in a very narrow RPM range then its better off with the series drive you described as the heavy, bulky clutch might be so infrequently used for its slight efficiency benefit.
A 50% thermal efficient (achievable) 100 hp ICE operating in a very narrow RPM range doing nothing but running a generator. Said generator charging a half sized battery in a Tesla S in its “sweet spot” with electrical charging efficiency approaching 100%. The top speed, continuous, will be about 90 mph. The acceleration, uphills and short bursts of higher speeds are handled by the battery which is then “caught up” by the generator. There is no mechanical drive between the ICE and the drivetrain.
How achievable is it? A production engine will need to be a lot cleaner and more reliable than a track testbed.
The most efficient production ICE now is 40%. MB has a race engine at 50%, Mazda promised 56% back in 2017 but as of now AFAIK we are still making do with 40% in mass produced ICE.
50% is achievable if everything is optimized for a steady state/steady load condition which is how it would be run in this scenario.
Good on you David. Talking with, and attempting to change others’ view point, especially in hostile territory is commendable. Even if your message only gets through to a couple people, you have been successful. I am also thrilled to see The Autopian getting national recognition, and your stories getting cited by other major outlets.
It’s now only a matter of time before everyone else learns this place is the best. Keep on doing the great work you all do.
To The Autopian: Please keep doing a sorta-OK job of laying low on the politics so that people you may perceive as living in a bubble can just enjoy the auto stuff.
This, and that includes the commenters. It’s been surprisingly civilized and I hope it remains so.
Seriously. There’s exposure and then there’s good exposure.
While it’s commendable to face the lions and try to talk sense at them, trolling for new members from a flagship site of either extremist side could be a recipe for disaster.
I have a 1998 UKDM Nissan Maxima and a 2017 JDM Nissan X-Trail Hybrid (Rogue in the US). The Maxima tows stuff and is the highway cruiser, getting 30-35 mpg (Imperial) at highway speeds. The Nissan X-Trail is my commuter car, dealing with stop-start, fast, slow and WTF are we crawling? speeds during rush-hour traffic and gets 40-45 mpg (Imperial) as a result. They’re both good vehicles that have their pros and cons.
David is right in that Hybrids are the best option for most peeps who are unable or not ready to go full BEV and make a good transition between full ICE and full BEV. I’m not sold on PHEVs, though – they seem a little unnecessary and more of a marketing gimmick.
I can understand the “marketing gimmick” criticism of some PHEV’s, particularly those less than 25 miles of electric only range. However when done right, like my 2018 Volt with 53 miles electric-only range, PHEV’s are game-changers. That’s enough range that I only use gas on long out of town trips. I save about $700/yr on fuel (even after paying for electricity), though in Ohio I pay the state $150/yr to make up for the gas tax I’m not paying (no problem!). As the electrical grid becomes less fossil fuel dependent, the environmental benefits of EV’s and PHEV’s becomes even greater.
Yeah, 53 miles of EV-only range would def be a game-change for most commutes. I commute just under 35 miles each way, but even using the gas engine for most of the return trip would make a difference. We don’t get cars like the Volt here in NZ and IIRC, some PHEVs sold here barely reach 25-30 miles of range in EV mode (although not having actually researched this that well, I could be wrong).
Every outlet is going to put their own spin on a story. Fox kept it mostly straight. It doesn’t matter which way you lean, that’s always refreshing to see. I’ve certainly seen more bias from other news sources.
Thanks for doing this, David. I’m trying to hang onto my 04 Saab as long as possible, but since my daily commute is basically a 20mi RT triangle, an EV makes too much sense. That said, don’t have a ton of money, and have four kids, so my situation is pretty unique (and I don’t want to go to SUV land). I’m hopeful that this will all sort out. Whenever it comes out, I’m tempted to throw our Sienna (2017) to the curb and go all-in on the ID.Buzz, but the charger situation and the fact it’d need to be able to handle some long trips worries me.
Can’t go wrong with a used Nissan Leaf for around $5k.
The environment is really the only thing that matters for the future of humanity. We can’t get rid of gas cars fast enough. It sucks that racist anti-Chinese and pro-UAW politics are keeping us from getting the cheap EVs we really need to slow down global warming. The US government should also be heavily investing in charging infrastructure and taxing gas pickup trucks and SUVs very heavily to pay for it. Paris has the right idea with their SUV tax.
The auto industry’s paradigm of planned obsolescence is needlessly costing everyone money and wasting resources. This is on purpose because that is how profits are maximized. Profit maximization through planned obsolescence is not compatible with environmental sustainability. But then, how would the financial elites afford their private jets, multiple mansions, and supercar collections if they didn’t have a way to constantly force us proles to spend all of our money nd/or go into constant debt slavery for a given degree of living standard?
The current economic system is really at the root of the problem, and the products that are made available for us to buy reflect not the sensibilities of the consumers that buy them, but of the manufacturers that produce them. Those who own the means of production force the engineers to design the products a certain way, and profit maximization is the key design criterion. If saving the planet is the goal, the design criterion should be maximum value and service life for the labor/resources expended to produce the product, as well as economic reparability of said product, which will by necessity mean less products get sold.
Filling up landfills with toxic garbage is profitable for industry. Yet the middle class consumers are assigned the blame and asked to make sacrifices. After all, the middle class is consuming resources that the rich will need for their extravagant lifestyles, resources which the current economic paradigm is forcing the middle class to consume for their given level of living standard.
Well said. Chasing the profit numbers through recurring volume sales is negatively impacting the emissions reductions and climate benefits of newer cars. It’s fantastic that we can build low- or near zero-emission vehicles. It looks great on paper. But automotive manufacturing itself produces a large quantity of hazardous and climate-warming emissions. Automotive “recycling” doesn’t recapture everything — and produces waste and emissions of its own. So in reality, the net gains are limited.
Often, we’re just pushing emissions sources around — cutting some, increasing others. We could do better with a more all-encompassing approach. Unfortunately, that’s not going to bring in the highest profit and it doesn’t fly with the lobbying groups that affect policy decisions.
Everything is made to look good on paper, ignoring the actual reality of the situation. This applies in most government statistics, including employment numbers, inflation, wages, ect. Also applies to emissions and environmental impact. Everything is gamed in order to assure the ruling class don’t have to give anything up, when they are the source of most of what ails modern society. And it is probably going to end in utter and complete disaster for everyone and the planet in general.
My personal opinion: small government communism or anarcho-communism but with with individual rights and private property ownership as the foundation(eg. plebes outright own their own homes and vehicles via allodial title without any taxes, their income is not taxed by government OR profited from by business, but the means of production are democratized and the assets of the ruling class redistributed to everyone). It sounds contradictory, but that’s only because it would take a book to explain it. Anarcho-capitalism with a dissolution of large corporations and democratized ownership of the means of production as an initial prerequisite might work as well. Even libertarian-capitalism would be a massive improvement over the authoritarian neoliberal/neoconservative paradigm that exists today. Non-human entities like corporations should be shut out of the debate entirely. Currently, their wants are placed ahead of the needs of individual people. Corporations in their current form really shouldn’t exist, IMO. Neither should a multi-trillion dollar defense and surveillance apparatus instituted by the current government exist to protect them.
At the foundation, the ruling class needs to be done away with, government needs to be removed from peoples’ lives as much as possible, and people need to be freed of the burden of supporting a ruling class so they can live their own lives in peace. Government, if it exists(I’d argue its unnecessary), should actually serve the people, and not the other way around. People should be free to conduct business as they see fit, but people should also be free of exploitation by bureaucratic entities such as governments or corporations.
The above paragraphs are a mere starting point. My own views lean more toward those of Thomas Jefferson than Karl Marx, and even though they are opposed, the latter made many valid points. People who have to work for a living are getting screwed in all directions. That needs to be stopped.
Technological advancements in 3D printing and CNC machining, coming down in price, along with AI advancements, may allow for something like the above to evolve organically without government force, but if the government steps in to protect the privileges of the ruling class in the face of this, revolution will probably become mandatory to avoid a dark fate.
Eh… when you put it in such reductionist terms, you’re doing your own argument a disservice.
China copies, clones, and counterfeits, with approval from the state. They have scores of entities that operate under the auspices of the CCP whose sole intent is to disrupt the American economy (like the Kaseya breach). They engage in malicious trade practices, including dumping (most recently of solar panels, but that’s far from the only thing). And that’s to say nothing of their use of slave labor and inmate labor to be able to sell items at the prices they do. There was a time within living memory when distributors were careful to distinguish between “Made in China” (bad) and “Made in Taiwan” (good). Then people stopped caring.
That doesn’t, you’ll note, touch on the environmental factor. Displacing production from the US to China simply means more pollution… somewhere else. Chinese production methods are not environmentally friendly, and whatever your preferred output metric is (CO2, plastic, particulates), China is doing increasingly worse relative to any other developed nation.
None of the above is racist (I am, in fact, typing this on a Japanese-made laptop, as I’m about to get into my Japan/US-manufactured car).
I wouldn’t buy a Chinese EV. Not now, not until that country embraces any notion of integrity in its trade practices. I will gladly purchase Korean, Japanese, or other overseas goods where I can.
Can’t quite tell if you’re just trolling in that first sentence. As others have commented, there are plenty of reasons to not want Chinese vehicles flooding the market, from questions about quality to a complete lack of respect for any international intellectual property law to a similar lack of respect for human rights, etc. Also, I don’t see where the UAW comes into the argument unless you’re again advocating for dumping Chinese autos into the US market. Unions exist to protect workers rights and as part of that they do advocate for policies to ensure level playing fields as far as trade goes (see US Steel industry after Chinese steel dumping).
Very confused why trade policy gets reduced to being racist or pro-union (which btw, why would anyone be anti-union is beyond me)
Just so you know, Im not against china because I’m racist. I am against the GENOCIDE AND MASS ENSLAVEMENT they are doing to produce their products so cheaply. Not sure where you stand on that though.
China is not unique in this regard. Very similar to the USA, in fact.
Surprised the CCP has you working on a Sunday, maybe its Monday morning over there though.
The Chinese Communist Party, the Stalinsts, and their ilk can fuck right off.
For all of their incompatible viewpoints, Thomas Jefferson(hypocrite slave owner he was) and Karl Marx were after the same thing: individual freedom. The CCP is opposed to that. Modern China is a shit show regarding civil liberties, and the modern USA is not far away from them in that regard.
I think USA has a lot to work on, probably in a different direction than you, but I can agree there. Especially the bad stuff we do and don’t tell people about over-seas.
That said, no way will I say we are even close to the damage to humanity that China inflicts regularly all over the world and their country. Belt and road should be called “yes we will bribe your presidents and take control over your ports in 10 years”. And then all the slave and genocide stuff that is CURRENTLY happening. It just doesn’t compare to me.
I will take back my CCP comment aimed at you though. Appologies.
The US war machine has arguably killed as many people as China has. Whenever big money and big government is to be found, there’s a trail of bodies leading to it and a mass of slaves created to prop them up.
The US intelligence agencies have lots of blood on their hands since their inception, and it is likely that the modern Chinese dictatorship couldn’t have existed without them.
Communism wasn’t the threat it was made out to be, nor is capitalism itself necessarily evil. The problem is that we have a global ruling class using the rest of humanity as slaves.
Last sentence sums it all up to me.
I hope you are aware that switching every single car in the US to electric would effect, at best, a couple percent decrease in worldwide anthropogenic CO2 emissions. If stopping global warming is what you’re after, this is not a very comprehensive way to do that, and it is not the most cost effective way to reduce emissions.
Perhaps at this immediate moment, assuming you’re right, which I highly doubt.
But the idea is that electricity generation can be accomplished by a variety of means, which will trend greener over time. So any electric cars will essentially become more environmentally friendly as those infrastructure advancements occur. ICE vehicles cannot ever be automatically more environmentally friendly than they were the day they rolled off the lot. Big difference.
Because of the way electricity is generated separately from the way that it is sold. We cannot look at the ‘local’ production numbers. Coal country will tend to stay coal burning. But even now, electricity is sold across state lines. So even though the electrons in your car may come from coal power steam plant, many people can buy ‘SOLAR’ power in coal country. We need to look at the national grid, and that is growing greener every day and coal is loosing to natural gas. Both changes are reducing pollution output and all electric cars benefit from this nation trend of reducing emissions exactly as you said, but to the opposite conclusion.
The elephant in the room is the total unwillingness to switch from fossil fuels to new generation nuclear power. The old, bespoke nuclear power plants were/are very expensive to produce and maintain. Also the reluctance to reprocess depleted nuclear fuel rods into new fuel rods, at once reducing the nuclear waste and making the fuel cheaper is baffling.
Other “green” power is notably inconsistent. You certainly are not gonna charge an electric car overnight w/ solar power and wind power is not always available. Nuclear power should be the baseline power, solar could take up the slack to run air conditioning during the hot days.
Thorium reactors are the only ones I can get behind. They are inherently fail safe (no melt down) and waste is much easier to deal with. The only reason uranium reactors exists is for plutonium extraction for weapons. That is actually what gets reprocessed from the waste of current designs.
Not yet at least. That will be the next step once the bans lead to people buying in red states and “importing” or keeping their old cars rather than “upgrading” to a new EV as directed.
Yeah I thought the same thing…… He said that nobody is trying to take your gas car from you, but that won’t be true forever. There are cities banning driving gas cars if any age in certain areas. States are banning sale of new gas cars. California already banned operating trucks over a certain age, I have no doubt that in the future they will ban operating cars powered by combustion.
And your little guns too!!
IMO, the more guns, the merrier! I’m personally fond of the SKS.
IIRC that is a true Cheap Bastard special…
I predict they will ratchet up registration costs for gas cars under the guise of “climate reparations” or similar until it’s untenable to own or operate one legally.
An outright ban would be too unpopular, but they can get one in practice.
You mean what they currently are doing in London. Yeah that makes sense.
The comment saying the Model Y is faster than most sportscars, sure it’s quicker than most, but I’m going to need a little more proof about it handling like a Formula One race car.
Yeah, tell me he knows nothing about F1 or what cars can potentially handle like without telling me so. Heck, a Lotus would wake him up if he drove one. Even a Miata would handle far better than his Tesla.
Congratulations on getting some mainstream attention. And saying what a lot of people have not begun to understand.
I’m just glad the rapid partisanization of every aspect of American has formed the weirdest group of people humanity has known to date. I’m a career emergency room social worker, who before that spent too much time hanging with the Department Of Defense. I’ve meet a variety strange people, almost daily for years, my tolerance for the human condition is high. And if you honestly asked me to spend one three hour dinner with 10 people in that comment section or lose the internet forever. Expect my next post to come via USPS. You went on and gave a reasonable, logical opinion that any normal person would respond “sure, makes sense.” But anything less then, “EVs will result in social collapse”, you’re getting this. There’s no arguing with this nonsense. Because the big man on TV made the ICE automobile a stand in for their regional slice of life that represents every facet of them, like the Green Bay Packers of social symbolism in the mundane. This culture that has formed might be deplorable or whatever people want to call it. Ultimately, it’s is just straight up weird and odd. And maybe if we start acknowledging this antisocial behavior as the oddity that it is, maybe we can stop taking these non-serious arguments seriously.
Well that’s not much of a surprise given the US military is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels on the planet AND much of their reason to exist is based on protecting US fossil fuel interests.
That said they have put an ENORMOUS amount of money into renewable liquid fuels without much to show for it. And its never going to be possible to power a practical warplane or tank with anything but liquid fuels. Big ships can certainly be nuclear but cost is an issue there so those tend to be limited. So its no surprise they’re skeptical.
Wild work history, I bet you’ve got great stories
Quite brave to take the interview, and well done!
Whether we fully agree or not on ypur position, it’s refreshing to see different views represented on generally biased media – I think we’d all be better off if this happened more often!
I think for the application of inexpensive low-end hatchbacks, sedans, or even minivans/wagons capable of comfortably fitting a family, pure EV is the way to go. Less components. Less complexity. Less cost. The trick is to make a platform that is actually efficient, comparable to say a VW XL1 or GM EV1 at a minimum regarding CdA, and eliminating unnecessary luxury features that add cost, add mass, and consume more energy. Getting an acceptably comfortable vehicle that consumes under 150 Wh/mile at 70 mph with a curb weight around 3,000 lbs, built of conventional materials, is not rocket science, and that is how you keep the cost of the battery for an acceptable range nice and cheap, where most potential EV buyers want it(the entire selling point being to save money over a comparable gasoline ICE over the vehicle’s lifetime).
The same could be said for an affordable sports car targeting the Miata for competition, except with a smaller vehicle seating less people, a complete 200+ mile range vehicle under 2,500 lbs is possible. Battery weight is the enemy, and efficiency is required to get an acceptable range from a small/lightweight battery.
Yet no one does this. It’s obvious low-hanging fruit. But no one does this. It’s so damned stupid. We don’t want the fat-margined sizzle the industry trying to sell us. Give us the damned steak already, with good value for the money and narrow-thin margins. Substance over style(although there’s no reason we can’t have both). Not a single car on today’s automotive market in the USA is substance over style. Not a one. The closest might be a Tesla Model 3, but that is its own can of worms, and the Mitsubishi Mirage is a penalty box without giving the buyer something in exchange for it(It’s CdA value isn’t slippery, nor is it a performance vehicle).
For heavier and more wasteful vehicles, PHEVs do make more sense, IMO. Especially trucks and SUVs. But those vehicles will always be more expensive than something basic. Basic is what the EV market needs, and that also has to be applied to mass and wind resistance so that long range can be extracted from a small battery that historically would have been appropriate for a city car.
I fully support EVs, but a further development of the BMW i3/Chevy Volt tech would also make all the sense in the world at this stage. A car with about 200 miles of range and a small engine that can double the range with less weight than doubling the size of the battery. If used properly, most people will never need that range extender anyway. So, until battery technology improves, it would the more efficient use of resources. And those wary of the EV charging infrastructure would be reassured.
But no manufacturer is building this.
“A car with about 200 miles of range and a small engine that can double the range with less weight than doubling the size of the battery. If used properly, most people will never need that range extender anyway.”
I hear you, but why have the range extender at all then? At that point, it would probably be cheaper to just rent a gas car when you need the extra range.
I think instead the 40-ish mile range of most plug-ins is ideal, because even if you’re driving 60-100 miles a day (which I’m guessing is more common than 200 miles), then having half of that in electric mode is a huge improvement. But buying and carrying an extra 100-140 miles of battery (based on your 200 mile range idea) is a ton more costly upfront and down the road when it needs to be replaced.
The battery technology of 25 years ago was good enough. 150+ miles range at 70 mph was possible with a streamlined car using Ovonics NiMH batteries, batteries which had a gravimetric energy density about 1/4th as good as those in a modern Tesla Model 3. With conventional materials, it was possible to build an EV sedan weighing 3,000-ish lbs hauling around 900 lbs of these batteries in a 25-30 kWh pack.
The technology has gotten so much better since. The problem is that the vehicle platforms themselves are inefficient, mostly in the name of promoting whatever fad corporate styling is in vogue(massive grilles, massive wheels with expensive/delicate rubberband tires, creases everywhere, fake vents, plastic cladding, angry angular front faces, ect.). This requires bigger, heavier, more-expensive battery packs to deliver a given amount of range because of all of that extra air either being pushed out of the way or pulling the car back at speed, which consums more energy sapping range.
In spite of all of our technological advancements since, no EV on the market today has a CdA value at least as slippery as a GM EV1 or a Solectria Sunrise. The GM EV1 and Solectria Sunrise were 3 decades ago. These EV platforms offer a nearly 50% improvement in highway range per kWh of battery versus the best of today’s currently available platforms, and a roughly 30% improvement in overall range per kWh of battery in mixed city/highway driving.
With the right platform, adding a gasoline ICE unnecessarily increases the cost. A pure EV can actually be less expensive to produce and operate than a comparable ICE car. Platform efficiency is the key to that, by keeping the battery cost down. For an EV, the battery is the single most expensive component of the car, and the single largest driver of the car’s overall operating cost when it coms time to repair or replace said battery pack. It’s much cheaper/easier to replace/repair a smaller battery pack than a larger one. Currently, modern EVs are overweight, overpriced landfill fodder and will never be economical to repair, defeating the EV’s eco-friendly mission statement. When the time comes to replace or repair the battery and the cost to replace or repair the battery is more than the car is worth, the car becomes scrap, even if the rest of the car is perfectly fine and serviceable. The used car market typically won’t want an EV with a dead or dying battery. This is a massive waste of resources considering the embodied energy that went into producing the car, and considering it has a drive system and chassis that could allow the car to last a human lifetime.
The Aptera shows promise at least. It’s a good indicator of what happens when platform efficiency is a significant design criterion. It promises 100 Wh/mile at 70 mph. This is more than a 2-fold improvement over a Tesla Model 3(currently the most efficient EV on the market). I hope it makes it to market.
Remember that a range extender does not have to be logical for it to have environmental benefits. Its ability to act as a placebo to get people driving electric should not be understated, nor should its ability to displace 50kWh of dirty-to-mine batteries that people feel they need to avoid range anxiety.
I think there is room for both approaches in the same vehicle.
A more efficient platform also reduces the horsepower output required for the range extender, and therefore reduces the mass of the range extender. Having a $30k pure BEV sedan with say a 50 kWh pack and a 350 mile range, and a PHEV variant with a 15 kWh pack of increased power density and 100 mile plug-in range with a 20 horsepower REX of similar price would make a lot of sense. By sharing the platform and sharing the same EV drive system, manufacturing costs could go way down.
The more efficient platform designed to maximize range per kWh will also get better fuel economy when using gasoline. 80+ mpg on long road trips without having to stop and charge anywhere shouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for a slippery W123-sized sedan with enough room for all occupants to stretch their legs out fully. Consider the GM Precept and Ford Prodigy as starting points.
Completely agree. Reduce energy needed to move the car.
“The problem is that the vehicle platforms themselves are inefficient, mostly in the name of promoting whatever fad corporate styling is in vogue…”
This is my issue with ICE cars too.
Most of us should all be driving around in 40-50 mpg 4-5 passenger sedans, coupes and wagons right now – but the manufacturers keep sending us oversized, overcomplex, overpowered and heavy AWD vehicles with “…massive grilles, massive wheels with expensive/delicate rubberband tires, creases everywhere, fake vents, plastic cladding, angry angular front faces, etc…”
I partially blame the US consumer, but I also heavily blame self-important automotive
writersPR rebloggers/influencers from mainstream outlets who are never satisfied unless every car theytestjoyride is as fast as a Porsche 911 Turbo S and holds as many people and as much luggage as a 747.Modern cars are designed to met the wants of auto industry executives, rather than the needs of the people that drive them, especially the 2nd and 3rd owners.
This is why the entire automotive landscape in the USA is so vulnerable to disruption by inexpensive Chinese EVs, when it shouldn’t be. 25 years ago, GM had the technological lead regarding EVs on a global basis, and then threw it away…
…and they’re ordered by dealers who are more concerned with ease of selling and high margins on both transactions (First the 3 year lease, then the pre-owned sale) than what’s best for – or even wanted by – their customers.
Dealers are nothing but parasitic middlemen. Thy shouldn’t exist, and only do so because lobbyists have forced us to go through them via law. I like how Tesla told them to fuck off.
Agreed –
I believe dealers served a purpose 100 years ago.
That’s no longer the case.
With extremely slippery aero, say, a CdA value around 0.3 m^2, we could have a lightweight 2,500-ish lb sports car powered by an LT-series V8 getting 50+ mpg highway.
A Corvette C5, bone stock, can do 30 mpg at 70 mph with an LS1, having close to twice that amount of drag and weighing in around 3,200 lbs.
Or the same performance as current Corvettes could be had with an inline 6 or turbo 4 – then brakes could be lighter, making wheels smaller and lighter, therefore lighter suspension components, smaller and lighter cooling systems, and a lighter body, etc – – resulting in even better mileage.
A Skyactive inline-6 in a Miata-sized streamliner would be amazing. Imagine an inexpensive basic-ass sports car with a Miata’s price tag, that can get 60+ mpg highway and run circles around bloated supercars on a track, while being capable of cruising 200 mph on the Autobahn.
I know some people’s first reaction to my idea would be “that’s communism”, but I believe that government should supply/mandate a battery sized like what you have repeatedly recommended and mandate that each manufacturer makes at least one vehicle using that battery. The battery should be easily replaced, and must be universal on attachments, connections and charge points. In my mind this would be more cost effective than the billions that governments are now pouring into manufacturers building battery plants with no restrictions on what type of batteries they choose to manufacture. This would almost force the manufacture of a more efficient car as the battery would be identical between all manufacturers and thus the differentiation would be in how efficient they could make the vehicle using that battery.
This would be fantastic. If only it could happen… 🙁
I have long advocated for filter manufacturers to tell engine manufacturers that “we build 4 filters-small, large, spin on, cartridge. Make you crap fit what we build”. Ditto for batteries. 47 varieties of batteries is strictly for proprietary/profit reasons.
Bravo for this! Talking only to those who agree with us does not help anything.
Unfortunately, I would not dismiss the somewhat misleading headline as a minor thing. Most people won’t read past the headline, and Fox knows that. From the headline alone, many of those people now will be able to say things like “Even EV owners think ICE cars are the better choice, and that EV investments are a foolish waste”.
Hopefully enough people will read the full article, and it is great that you wrote this follow up piece to further put things into context.
It really doesn’t seem like it was misleading at all. “All electric push was foolish” is what David said, what he thinks, and what he’s been saying on this website for quite some time.
Just because you said a sentence amidst your enormous rant, doesn’t mean THAT sentence was the crux of your argument and should therefor be the headline OF your contribution.
I believe that was the point they were making.
Also, DT himself said this in the article these comments are attached to, so that’s really all the “proof” needed – “let’s talk about the headline. It states that I think America’s EV push was foolish, when really I was saying…”
Fox News has a misleading headline and ignored the content? Then the commenters were all nasty? You jest. /sarcasm
Good on you for going in to the dragon’s den! The reasonable arguments probably went a long way.
Anyway, looking forward to all the new commenters here in the next few days, and learning about different views 🙂
I believe that the article demonstrates that FOX news is more fair and balanced than 90% of mass media (who are almost universally populated by leftist, progressive, liberals).
I feel dirty after just seeing a sample of Fox comments.
*/shudders/*
I would like to meet Paul, whose Tesla handles like a formula one race car. Things can be arranged.
David, you did the right thing, you’re ok by me.
Pretty much blah blah blah
I can’t tell if you’re braver for going on Fox News TV or Fox News website comments.
I appreciated your nuanced take on hybrids, and it’s not an exaggeration to say it swayed me. No, it’s not perfect (and my prior stance being “less than perfect is not good enough!”), but that’s always been the enemy of the good, and there’s a lot of good to be had that way.
I’ve lost vision in my left eye as a result of those comments. Good Lord.