luxury

What Is the True Cost of EV?

Standard

The battery electric vehicle (EV) versus the internal combustion engine (ICE) powered debate is one of the most irrational of our time. On both sides of the discussion, you have those frothing-at-the-mouth types who attack the moment you disagree. And this is exactly the response that I got after I had casually mentioned that ICE is 1/3 the cost under a click-bait post…

Model Y starts at $43,990 FYI.

One just called me ignorant, but others tried to make an argument, including this response:

I’m trying to figure out what car cost 1/3 of the price of a Tesla🤔🤔? The long range Model 3 (the one you want for a roadtrip) is $42,500 – $7500 tax credit is $35,000. This is not factoring in gas savings. Please tell me what new car is availability for under $12,000 (that’s the 1/3 cost of a Tesla you mentioned)?

Fair enough question.

Note, I never said new, but assuming that I did…

Believe it or not, and even in this inflationary age, there are still reliable sedans that come in under $20,000. Starting with a Mitsubishi Mirage G4 ($18,500), the Kia Rio ($17,875), and the Nissan Versa ($17,075), the lowest-priced option is half of even the subsidized price of the Tesla base model.

But you can’t exclude the subsidy from the cost of the EV, the government doesn’t have a magic wand to create value and we all end up paying for their expenditures in our taxes or by inflation due to money printing. And it only begins with that “tax credit” (so-called) given directly to privileged people who can afford a new luxury car.

What is the true cost of subsidies?

According to a study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the cost to us is nearly $50,000 for every EV produced:

Federal and state subsidies and regulatory credits for EVs totaled nearly $22 billion in 2021, or nearly $50,000 per EV, socializing the true cost of these vehicles to taxpayers, utility ratepayers, and owners of gasoline vehicles

Tens of billions of dollars have been spent trying to make EVs viable, and yet still the average cost of these vehicles is $65,000, compared to $48,000 for ICE. Why haven’t these subsidies leveled the playing field? It is simply the fact that batteries require tons of extra material and a much more complex process to produce.

So we can at least double that visible “tax credit” subsidy and already the true cost of an EV is close to three times a comparable ICE sedan.

We could stop there—the 1/3 number reached—but let’s continue…

What is the true cost of production?

The cost of a vehicle isn’t just the window sticker price or the money that it takes to manufacture. The bigger question—given the reason many say we should switch to EVs is about emissions—is what the increased environmental impact is of producing the batteries that go into these cars. Is this a trade-off we are willing to make?

Lithium batteries are costly, they require an enormous amount of water and also leave a toxic legacy that will grow exponentially as EV is adopted. Is it worth this cost to only marginally reduce carbon emissions?  That is to say, around 17-30% less emissions according to European Energy Agency? 

Sure, it could get better with a heavy investment in electrical generation and transmission—yet that is another huge cost financially and environmentally…

What is the cost of infrastructure demand?

This is where the conversation is the most interesting. We have the refining capacity and distribution network already built for ICE vehicles. Gasoline and diesel fuel have the advantage of being energy-dense and can be moved around using the existing highways. But what about EVs?

There is an illusion that comes with plugging something in. The load we put on the system is invisible. But there is no magic to it. Electricity is something that must be produced somewhere and then transmitted to the charging stations. If everyone adopted EV technology the grid would collapse.

We’re currently nowhere even near what it would take in capacity to convert everyone to EV. The easiest route to more electrical generation is to go anuclear. So how many new nuclear power plants would it take? Well, if we use miles driven and the number of cars on the road today, then we would need to build 250 additional nuclear power plants as big as the largest plant in the US, and the supporting infrastructure to keep up with this demand.

So are you willing to have a Palo Verde in your own backyard?

It cost 5.9 billion dollars to build one in 1988 (the equivalent of 13.9 billion in 2023) and we needed to start building 250 of them yesterday.  The solar and wind equivalent would be even more costly to build and maintain.

The costs would be astronomical and that’s just considering only passenger vehicles. Switching Class 8 trucks would take even more of these massive power plants and spending—the cost of switching would be insane.  Not to mention you would need more trucks to do the same work as you did with diesel.  And remember, every dime that we spend on this mass EV conversion could go to health care or education instead.

Can you now see how extremely costly EVs will become as they are adopted?

But it does not end there…

Why is the cost of wear items greater?

Batteries are heavy and weight is the enemy of “wear items” like brakes or tires—which is not to mention the additional damage to the highway infrastructure.

EV tires wear 20% faster than comparable ICE vehicles.  That is a cost out of your own pocket and also a concern for the environment. And do not forget, to be safe you’ll need those heavy-duty EV-specific tires. Sure, maybe this is not a very big problem for those who can already afford the premium cost of a new EV?  However, for that waitress struggling to make ends meet she will have to make the choice between safety and home utilities.

Next up is excess road wear.  Big trucks are obviously the leading cause of damage to roads. However, EV proliferation will start to cause problems for existing infrastructure:

A 6,000-pound vehicle causes more than five times as much road damage as a 4,000-pound sedan. A GMC Hummer EV, which weighs 9,063 pounds, will cause 116 times as much road damage as a Honda Civic, weighing 2,762 pounds.

The article cited above isn’t about EVs yet does apply given it is about the vehicle weight. Even the Model 3 is a whopping 3,862 to 4,054 lbs. Sure, one vehicle is not going to do a whole lot by itself, but the volume over time will significantly impact bridges and parking garages that were designed for lighter ICE vehicles. This EV vehicle weight bloat caused by batteries will require very costly upgrades to prevent catastrophic failures—like the Ann Street Building Collapse:

Speaking of disasters. With EV there is potential for a thermal runaway or reaction that can’t be stopped—like an ICE fire—by simply denying the source of oxygen. This hazard will result in more damage to road surfaces, more time spent in traffic jams after incidents, and additional toxic emissions. This is a cost to be seriously considered with all of the others.

Cost of time, capability, and resale value…

Many of the costs and drawbacks of EVs are hidden under a pile of subsidies or are moved upstream like the emissions—out of sight out of mind.

But what cannot be ignored is performance in terms of range. Time is by far our most valuable resource and nobody wants to spend hours in a place they don’t want to be because their vehicle battery is drained.

As far as capabilities, even EV trucks are useless for towing, both the Tesla Cybertruck and the Ford Lightning—both costing around $100,000 in the higher trim levels—aren’t so good at doing typical truck things. Sure, they produce a ton of low-end torque and are very fast. But the F-150 EV only went 90 miles pulling a camper and the Tesla only fared a little better.

7000lb luxury land yachts

And finally, we need to talk about plunging resale values. For a while EV was a novelty, the “way of the future” every suburban geek needed to virtue signal. But it appears that this is now starting to fade and reality is starting to take over again—46% of EV owners in the US plan to ditch EV to return back to ICE—and many will not recoup their cost because the floor is dropping out for used EVs:

A recent study from iSeeCars.com showed the average price of a 1- to 5-year-old used EV in the U.S. fell 31.8% over the past 12 months, equating to a value loss of $14,418. In comparison, the average price for a comparably aged internal combustion engine vehicle fell just 3.6%.

That’s bad news for the EV industry.  That is probably why Ford, after losing billions on their EV investments, has made plans to pivot back to hybrid.  Toyota, ever conservative, never made the mistake of getting sucked into the EV mania.  My wife’s C-Max (hybrid) has no range anxiety, saves fuel, and has a plug-in version that can go on battery for a length of a commute.  This is the right compromise.

ICE costs less to build, but the hybrid will likely emerge as the winner for being the best of both worlds. It has range like ICE, and torque like an EV, while also keeping its value and not requiring vast new expenditures to upgrade the electrical infrastructure. If costs are reflected in the market hybrid will come out victorious in the end.  Some can afford EVs today, but only because others are absorbing more than half of the real costs.

As a footnote, I’m not opposed to EVs nor do I think they are destined to go extinct. If resale values continue to drop I would even consider owning one. The whole point of this article is simply to give a bit of pushback against the Pollyannaish sentiments that would lead to an ill-advised mandate. There would be an enormous cost, and opportunity cost, that would come with this. Just the fact that EVs need massive subsidies to be sold should tell us enough. If it isn’t viable in the market it isn’t viable.

What Is a Woman?

Standard

Put away those pink vagina hats, feminists, 2017 might as well be 17 BC, this is the current year, now wearing such a monstrous thing on your head is a clear sign of bigotry and transphobia.  How would those ‘women’ with penises feel?  A pussyhat is worse than a Confederate battle flag or MAGA hat and completely insensitive.

Transphobic sign from 2017?

A decade ago answering the question of what a woman is would be easy for most people.  My mom is a woman.  That’s what we call the part of mankind that is able to give birth: A womb-man.  

But, in the age of far-left ‘woke’ politics, this isn’t so easy anymore.  And this is the reason why, Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Supreme Court nominee, when asked, “Can you provide a definition for the word woman?” replied, “I can’t, not in this context, I’m not a biologist.”

Now, some are calling this question a trap, which it is.  It is a question intended to reveal the true character of Brown Jackson and it has.  Brown Jackson has shown herself as someone beholden to far-left extremism and unwilling to state a basic understanding that doesn’t need a biologist to get it right.

This is someone whom we are supposed to trust to make judgements on such matters, being interviewed for a job that is all about providing the final legal interpretations.  Will she also refuse to weigh in on the language of the law because she’s not one of the writers?  “I’m sorry, but I can’t rule on this, I didn’t write the Constitution.”

Alas, I think this is a selective lack of basic comprehension of what even children can figure out.  And we all know that it is not fair for a biological male to change his name, take some hormones, and then dominate women.  However, in the current ‘woke’ political paradigm one must pretend that a man competing as women is somehow stunning and brave.

The true irony of all this is that the pushers of the very same identity politics that moved Brown Jackson to the front of the line, which is completely about dividing people up into categories as a means to exploit their base tribal instincts, nominated someone who claims to suddenly be unable to distinguish women from men.

Man, I Feel Like A Women

And as far as the appeal to credentialism, I’m not sure any biologist would want to be declared to be transphobic and a bigot.  It would be a quick route to losing their job or funding, being cancelled, to risk offending the most powerful of marginalized.  Let’s hope this USA Today clip doesn’t represent a scientific community consensus or we’re in for a rough ride:


If this is indeed true, if there is “no sufficient way to clearly define what makes someone a woman,” then the solution to the alleged pay gap is to have more men identify as women, right?

If Jeff Bezos becomes Jen instead, would that be a huge victory for women?

Would it then be sexist to question the business practices of Amazon?

All of this is absurd.  A word that can’t be defined is meaningless.  We might as well remove it from the census form as it would be impractical to consult a biologist to help decide what gender we on a given day.  If it is that difficult to define woman, then we may all be women and who can say otherwise?  Who hasn’t sang along with Shania Twain, “Man, I feel like a woman”?

Transgenderism is truly a bigger threat to the special privileges of women than anything patriarchal.  It is essentially to say that the category does not exist, that anyone who identities as a woman can be a woman, and therefore all should have access to those spaces typically reserved for women.  Lia Thomas has arrived to erase the best efforts of women.

Loss of Meaning and Purpose

The one thing that is hard to define in this postmodern age, where a woman can’t even say what it actually means to be a woman, is our direction.  Even with the rejection of God and questioning of truth, a prior generation of academics and scientists could agree on basic definitions enough to advance.   

However, as this nihilistic deconstruction of meaning (and thus purpose) continued, as the very things that built civilization have become progressively eroded over time, it is become increasingly difficult to form a productive consensus.  If many can’t even be objective about gender and what it means to be a woman anymore, how will we decide anything if this goes further?

Language is becoming detached from the meaning.  This is a wedge driven by those perpetually stuck in dithering indecision, who are often insulated from real world consequences, who can afford to live in abstraction and denial.  But it is not sustainable, we can’t build strong and safe bridges while declaring engineering and mathematics to be racist. 

At some point there is reality, cold and harsh, that doesn’t care about our feelings.

Our elites are basically like those ridiculed for their debates about how many angels could dance on the head of a needle.  They have become totally impractical, useless as far as executive decision making and a real threat to social order.  Those unable to settle any matter definitively, let alone those truly more complex and nuanced, can’t build a future together.

It is a luxury, the ultimate privilege, to never have to define or decide anything and still be able to live.

The guy, trying to impress his date with his wokeness beside me, doesn’t actually live by the dogmas he is spouting, he can yammer on endlessly about his theories, but to sustain a relationship he’s going to have to make a commitment to something, eventually, or no woman will keep him around for long.