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Strawman arguments against EVs

12K views 137 replies 39 participants last post by  BackinBlack 
#1 ·
A Facebook friend of mine posted a pic showing the cost of gas in NZ is 3.18 per liter, or 12 NZ dollars per gallon ($7.46 US). Check out the thread that emerged when I posted that it was time to go electric. Whoever John Chadwick is, he is simply emotionally opposed to EVs and facts will not sway him. Anyway, I thought the exchange might be entertaining. If you have had similar online debates please share.

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#54 ·
My brother, a long-time gear-head and former owner of a repair shop, went through every single one of the standard arguments about battery life, time to charge, etc. I mostly responded with "No, that's not really true because..." or "Well, yes, but that's not really that much of an issue because..." in an effort to get him to question the legitimacy of what he's been told more than to prove him wrong. I find this a much more effective approach.
 
#59 ·
I agree 100%. I mean, I believed some of this stuff before I started researching buying one. A lot of it really isn't necessarily wrong information. It's just old information. As much as I joke, I sort of enjoyed talking to the guy and hope maybe he'll look at EVs a little differently...
 
#73 ·
I'll say that I stand somewhere between both incorrect extremes of "solar panels are worthless" and "solar panels are THE solution".

I'm with you on that. I once did an analysis of what it took to put solar panels on my roof. My "chart" included transportation of minerals to the mfg plant, parts to the plant, and panels to the vendor/customer. Also, the mining for minerals (salary and commuting for the workers), manufacture of the parts (salary and commuting for those workers). Manufacturing and deliver of the installation equipment. Salesmen driving around. Sea shipping and a host of other activities. There is a lot of activity associated with the production, delivery, and installation of solar panels that have environmental impacts - as with the production of just about anything. In the end it didn't look to me like we are making great strides in saving the planet.

All of them.
[/QUOTE]
 
#88 ·
Charging an EV every day will damage it: 3 Reasons to Stop Charging Your EV Every Night
That seems contrary to the conventional wisdom that greater depth of discharge is worse for battery degradation.

I could see a problem with keeping the battery at a high state of charge on average. So if you only use 10% of the battery and charge to 100% every day, that would result in the battery remaining at an average SOC around 95%, which is bad for battery health.

On the other hand, if you set your target charge level to 55%, use 10% and recharge every day, then your average SOC would be around 50%, which is good for battery health.
 
#91 ·
Our utility, an REA, actively promotes EVs and believe me it's not because they're environmentalists. The board and management are conservative business people. We charge our cars in the middle of the night when wholesale rates are low and we pay the fixed retail rate, so it's a high margin sector as far as they're concerned. Since we have minimum effect on peak usage, they don't have to upgrade their equipment while we increase their revenue. Meanwhile, they have to upgrade all the time to accommodate new homes.

Here in the Columbia Basin (a major electric power generating region) there's arguments between generators about who has to shut down when demand is too low. Fossil fuel plants shut down as soon as the wholesale rate is too low to pay the gas bill, but wind machines and hydro don't like to shut down since they have very low operating expenses, but somebody has to shut down so they battled it out and came to some sort of agreement.
 
#96 ·
LOL! Have you seen this one?



She acts like owning an EV makes you vulnerable to “the state” grounding you at their whim when it’s EXACTLY the opposite. Plenty of preppers worried about that have off-grid solar for EV charging. Heck, their car can even be a battery for storing energy for use when the water slows, the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine. If “the state” were to “turn off” anything to ground us in place they’d cut the fossil fuel supply. Good luck mining, transporting, and refining your own petroleum into gasoline.

She’s exactly 180° out of phase with reality while making some bizarre association with a kettle… something few of us in 100 or 120v land even care to own.



Her only other point is similarly ridiculous. Recycling the batteries “somehow” is likely easier than mining the lithium “somehow” in the first place, which… obviously wasn’t so much of a hurdle to stop China from mining it. At least it’s already concentrated in one place when it comes to recycling an EV. The cost of new lithium is so low at the moment that there isn’t much pressure to recycle every single one of them but supply and demand will change that eventually and all these EV batteries will be an even bigger goldmine than they already are.

Psst… my brother totaled his 2013 Volt a couple weeks ago. Anyone looking for a battery? ;)
 
#109 ·
You still need a medium of exchange. A currency based on something inherently scarce. With fusion tech, nothing physical would be scarce.

The crypto fans will probably have something to say about this but by the time we have science fantasy like artificial fusion we’ll have science fantasy like quantum computing which will totally break existing cryptocurrency.
 
#118 ·
I had my start in the IT industry back in the punched card days. I still remember the IBM 7770 Audio Response Unit, which was basically a glorified computer-controlled tape recorder that could play back up to 127(!) pre-recorded words.

Now I drive my car and dictate navigation commands and the dạmned thing understands me. Well, most of the time. I know how complex it is to recognize human speech so I always try to Enunciate. Very. Clearly. Nontheless it seems to be better at deciphering my girlfriend's heavily accented speech. Go figure.
 
#120 ·
I watched a YouTube video the other day... this guy was spewing the craziest of nonsense I ever heard in regards to Driving an EV is not good for the environment or cheaper than an ICE. He compared charging an EV is fossil fuel heavy and not clean.... $60,000 dollar EV is not even close to costs of ICE.
I really am getting tired of the "igits" doing this crap. Compare Gasoline to Electricity if your going to compare that. Compare Bolt EV with ICE.... not Hi dollar EVS to Low dollar ICE. I have Solar on my house so that makes me a little bit more "Green" than most.
I have no used oil to dispose of, No used air filter to dispose of, no spark plugs to dispose of. I have no tailpipe emissions pumping into the air, No Gasoline spills or emissions spewing into the air.
I have not bought Gas for my commutes now for 18 months, at a savings of 250 dollars a month x 18 = 4,500 dollars. So there is my "data" for the igits.
paid 30,000 for my car new.... so how long will it take to pay for itself?? Oh and by the way in AZ I made the cutoff for Grandfathering in Registration for life... 12 dollars a year. put that in your "podcast" mate!!!
Brent
 
#121 ·
If it makes you feel better, he's the same type of guy that will be defending EVs and attacking the thing that threatens to replace it, once EVs become mainstream.

There is tension in society between those bringing many bad ideas and a few good ones, and those resisting change. The resistance is to ensure only the very good ones displace previous accepted norms.

Of course, this is hardly a conscious effort on the part of the individuals, but nature seems to have selected this method for moving things along.
 
#124 ·
Oh yeah, NASCAR voters have a difficult time with EVs. I just hammer my MAGA friends with facts. EV OPERATING COST <$0.10/mile!
PG&E electricity at $0.42 /kWh
EV gets 4 miles / kWh
Fuel cost $0.10/ mile.
My F350 gets 8 miles/ gallon at $5.39/ gallon = 5.39÷8=0.67!
At USA average of 12k miles per year
EV = 0.10×12000=$1,200
F350 =. 0.67×12000=$8,040
Rinse and repeat.
 
#129 ·
I mean, I'm not going to click the link.

Environmental disaster is always applicable, the question is always the environment of what / who?

If solar was always a great idea, there'd be no need for coercion. We can identify a bad idea when we identify coercion. Pretty darned simple.
 
#132 ·
I’m sure there are solar panels removed and put into landfill, but this article is also making the wild assumption that solar panels are discarded when they reach 10-15 years in age. Much like with EV batteries, there is an engineer somewhere who had to come up with an “end of life” number. For instance, an EV battery is technically considered to be at the end of its life when it has lost 20% of its capacity. Of course, it can continue on in service for many more years. Even if it is pulled from the car, it is probably going to have one or two more life cycles in another vehicle or stationary use.

The same applies to solar panels. Even if a panel loses 40-50% of its capacity, it is still generating electricity. Even if the original user does not want it any more, there are people buying and installing used panels.
 
#134 ·
I’m sure there are solar panels removed and put into landfill, but this article is also making the wild assumption that solar panels are discarded when they reach 10-15 years in age. Much like with EV batteries, there is an engineer somewhere who had to come up with an “end of life” number. For instance, an EV battery is technically considered to be at the end of its life when it has lost 20% of its capacity. Of course, it can continue on in service for many more years. Even if it is pulled from the car, it is probably going to have one or two more life cycles in another vehicle or stationary use.

The same applies to solar panels. Even if a panel loses 40-50% of its capacity, it is still generating electricity. Even if the original user does not want it any more, there are people buying and installing used panels.
Valid points. I'm not knocking solar. I'm in my second house with solar and preparing to buy my third EV.
 
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