According to the state Air Resources Control Board, California is mandating by executive fiat the electrification of all new vehicles purchased in California by 2035. Not mentioned is the cost of the mandate or who will pay for it.
The first issue is fire safety. According to Business Insider, “Car fires have always been dangerous and difficult for firefighters, but highly combustible chemicals in electric car batteries are posing new challenges. One major difference is the possibility of what’s referred to as a ‘thermal runaway,’ in which an EV [electric vehicle] battery falls into a cycle of overheating and over-pressurizing, causing fires and sometimes explosions.”
Even minor fender-bender accidents can cause a short-circuit, causing a fire. Fires in EVs are difficult to extinguish using conventional methods and, unlike fires in fossil fuel-powered vehicles, create large amounts of contaminated water and hazardous waste from the carcass of the burned-out vehicle.
Who pays for this? The owner of the car must pay to replace his vehicle and/or anything else that’s damaged (like their house) in the fire. Taxpayers pay to extinguish the fire. But who pays for waste cleanup and disposal?
Then there is the cost to build recharging stations. When fossil fuel-powered vehicles were first introduced, it was private industry that paid to build refueling stations; in this case it is electric utilities that are providing the “fuel” to power the EV. But who will pay to install all those recharging stations?
And what about the distribution system upgrades that will be required to support increased power loads? One local power utility manager told me that if every single-family house on any city block were to have an EV charging station in their home, the utility would have to double the number of transformers serving the block and rewire the distribution system to handle the load.
These improvements will cost millions of dollars.
When you go to a refueling station today, the pumps indicate the price per gallon and are regularly tested to ensure that they are providing the customer an assurance that he/she is paying the correct amount for the fuel.
All the EV recharging stations I have seen so far do not have this information posted, so the EV owner has no idea what he/she is paying until they get the bill. And there is no indication that these stations are properly calibrated to ensure the customer is getting what they paid for.
Then there is the cost to fleet operators. Electric powered vehicles are heavier than the current fossil fuel-powered units, thus the amount of freight that can be carried is significantly less. Also, the distance they can travel between recharging stops is about half that of fossil fueled-powered equipment. The cost of everything from eggs to the EV you will be required to buy will go up significantly as shipping costs increase. Not only that, but the number of trucks will double to move the same amount of freight, thus requiring twice as many drivers and more traffic congestion.
One fleet car rental company recently sold all its EVs at a loss because no one would rent them, primarily because of the limited travel distance between recharges and the difficulty finding recharging stations and the two-to-six-hour wait while they recharged. Even a Biden administration cabinet secretary, trying to prove the benefits of EVs, couldn’t complete the trip because the battery drained sooner than expected partway through the trip.
These are just some of the issues to consider when you place your vote; Gov. Gavin Newsom issued this mandate by executive order. There was no public debate, voters weren’t allowed to choose the mandatory change to EVs, and the state Assembly didn’t debate the positive or negative aspects of the change.
Newsom is termed out, but someone will step up and ask for your vote. The first thing voters should ask a new candidate for governor is about the EV mandate: Who will pay for it?
One good way to kill an economy and place an untenable economic burden on the average family is to require this change. Whether you’re rich or poor, an environmental activist, or just don’t care, when electrical fees and taxes are increased to pay for system upgrades, you and I will be paying for this.
Ron Fink writes to the Sun from Lompoc. Send a letter for publication to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 2-12, 2024.
All I had to read was Mr. Fink’s first argument to know that the rest of his screed against EV’s is utter crap.
According to Motor Trend, a study done in Sweden (the U.S. has no similar studies) noted that of 3,400 car fires a year, only about 16 of them were EV’s or hybrids. Mr. Fink makes it sound like they happen every day. He is a victim of right-wing media, which provides over coverage of Tesla fires and how hard they are to put out. Most right-wing media is in the pocket of big oil.
Furthermore, the Swedish study shows that 98% of car fires happen to cars with internal combustion engines and those cars are 29 times more likely than EV’s to catch fire. The study also finds that the number of EV fires has not grown with more of them on the road. The number has basically stayed the same.
For anyone interested, I suggest you read the story:
https://www.motortrend.com/features/you-ar…