Thursday, March 28, 2024

Electric Vehicle Push Promises Unprecedented Problems

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Back in 2021, the issued an order requiring the federal to reach carbon-neutral emissions by 2050 and to get there, jump-start the fed's purchase and use of electric cars.

Team Biden's goal: 100 percent of new federal car purchases/leases would be of electric by 2027, leading to an all-electric fleet by 2035.

A year later, the Government Accountability Office reviewed what this all means and how Uncle Sam might reach these goals.  Among the conclusions:

While electric vehicle models are expected to become increasingly available, agencies may need to increase their acquisition of zero-emission vehicles by about 30,000 vehicles per year to meet Executive Order requirements.

Not impossible. There were more than 60,000 Tesla Model Ys sold in the 3rd quarter of 2022 alone.

The real bottleneck is charging stations:

…access to electric-vehicle-charging infrastructure is generally limited at federal facilities, and widespread fleet electrification will require a significant investment. To support widespread electric vehicle use, GSA has estimated that the federal government may need over 100,000 charging ports—the unit that provides power to the vehicle—in part, because GSA expects agencies to need one charging port for every two acquired—although the exact number required would depend on details of vehicle use and access to public-charging infrastructure. As of March 2022, federal agencies owned and operated over 4,000 charging ports—based out of about 1,050 charging locations—in less than 500 cities.

The federal government will spend roughly $7.5 billion supporting charging stations as part of the infrastructure bill passed earlier this year. The grand plan for that money is to make charging stations as common as gas stations. The numbers look like this:

Across the country, just under 47,000 EV charging stations are available for public use, according to the U.S. Department of . Biden aims to increase that number to 500,000 by 2030.

That's a huge increase in the number of stations. And if it can be accomplished, great – electrics and other alternative fuel cars are coming, but infrastructure is the concern.

And it doesn't end at charging stations. Any discussion of EVs and other non-fossil fuel goods must include a discussion of grid stability and energy sourcing. And right now, the grid may not be ready for a burst of new EVs, federal or private. It can be made so – but only with real investment, and newer thinking about how we generate and distribute power.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy has written about national and Virginia politics for more than 30 years with outlets ranging from The Washington Post to BearingDrift.com. A consulting writer, editor, recovering think tank executive and campaign operative, Norman lives in Virginia.

11 COMMENTS

  1. If I won a free electric car I would sell it at once and use the money to buy a nice good condition gas car:}

    • You forgot irreparable environmental damage due to mining, and processing to obtain the materials to make the batteries. Also the atmospheric polution from the machinery and equipment used in the mining operation. This whole concept is a circle jerk. Go nuclear – clean, efficient, and environment friendly.

      • Nuclear power plants, sure. Cars, trucks or aircraft? No way. The first accident would involve far to many people’s lives. Believe it or not, the USAF did consider a nuclear powered bomber in the 1950s, but quickly shelved that idea due to shielding weight and the very real possibility of a crash that could imperil a lot of people.

        The only US aircraft to carry a nuclear reactor was the NB-36H. The reactor was never actually connected to the engines. The program was canceled in 1958.

  2. If we don’t increase generating capacity, which is powered by fossil fuels, the new chargers won’t get any power..

    • Unless the government allows more nuclear reactors to be built. But you know how the war hawks will feel about that (glee).

  3. Even if criminals would have to outrun a federal law officer, (because they most likely in reality wouldn’t have to anyway given the prosecutor shirkers we have now, but just say they did) that gasoline powered car would really come in handy if the fed’s EVs don’t have the range to keep up with the chase. I’ll bet thieves will get pretty good at stealing batteries then the way they do catalytic converters today. The Emperors “pipe dream” of an electric Marxist utopia with all the “good” citizens enjoying the benefits and all the “bad” citizens will be in prison or work camps or something. We know who they are don’t we.

  4. The big problem with puppet,joe’s reality of electric cars, is just one of the greatest boon=dogglesof all time.First: our infrastructure can never handle electric cars.Second:the batteries are a time bomb,can srart fires any time,running or shut off.how, crazy is that,We would need fossil fuels to run everything.We need to stop this loony=tune from doing this,he is out of touch with reality, and insane.Lithium barreries are the new time bomb in hidenbidens radical agenda.

  5. Quick fix for your charging woes: Buy a small fuel powered generator and recharge when you run out of juice. Might take awhile and sever refillings of the generator’s tank, but eventually, you can continue your trip – after a very long “recharging” time. Say “Heil” to the liberal Dem-craps and their flag of totalitarianism.

  6. Who knows, electric cars might be a thing of the future. However, the country is most definitely not ready for them yet. Hybrids might perhaps be OK but let it all happen through competition and not having them crammed down our throats. That way people will be driving what they want and not what they have forced on them. From what I’ve seen in reports, China is making the batteries for electric cars. I can’t help but wonder how much the Chinese are paying Biden for his support. In fact, I also find myself wondering how much Biden gets from the Mexican drug cartels for keeping the border open and giving them free access to this country. The so-called democrats running our country into bankruptcy are doing a lot of strange things and none of them are good.

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