Electric vehicles may be the future. But let’s not get so addicted to the notion that we make bad decisions.
Insauga.com reports Brampton, Ontario is considering “a pair of new state-of-the-art electric firetrucks (that) could cost Brampton $5.4M.”
How long before these are mothballed?
Electric vehicles, the Goldilocks cars — they work only if not too cold or not too wet.
We may have hit Peak EV (Electric Vehicle).
Deloitte’s Global Automotive Consumer Study has just found a “rise in U.S. consumer interest in internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and a decline in hybrid and battery electric vehicle (BEV) purchase intent.” Interest in buying fossil-fuel cars rose nine points, to 67 percent, while interest in hybrids fell to 21 percent and in EV’s to 6 percent.
With Canadian GDP per capita dropping like a stone, what would you expect our minister of finance, Chrystia Freeland, to say last week at the elite Davos confab? “Come to Canada! We have $135 billion to give you!” is what she did say. Given our poor investment performance, it seems the only way to attract capital is to offer billions of tax dollars to foreign multinationals.
A recent report from Canada’s Department of Natural Resources says it is still “too early” to fully evaluate the reliability of electric vehicles (EVs) in Canadian winters despite comprehensive research spanning six years at an investment of $76.1 million.
“It is too early to fully evaluate the intermediate and ultimate outcomes,” said the report titled “Evaluation Of The Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Demonstration Program,” which was first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The federal government has said expanding the electric vehicle charging network is key to meeting the country’s climate goals, but an investigation by CBC’s Marketplace has exposed a wide range in pricing as well as inconsistencies in performance and reliability at public charging stations.
Marketplace tested the pricing and reliability at some of Canada’s most popular charging providers, travelling to Ivy, Flo, ChargePoint and Petro-Canada charging stations located across Ontario.
Electric cars will never account for more than a third of the market and consumers should not be forced to buy them, the boss of Toyota has said.
Akio Toyoda, chairman of the world’s biggest carmaker by sales, said that electric vehicles (EVs) should not be developed to the exclusion of other technologies such as the hybrid and hydrogen-powered cars that his company has focused on.
Speaking to employees in a question and answer session, Mr Toyoda called for a “multi-pathway approach”, adding: “The enemy is CO2.”
Why big fleet buyers are going into reverse on electric cars
Three years ago, London’s biggest taxi company reached a fork in the road.
Regulations announced by Transport for London meant all private hire vehicles registered in the capital would have to meet tougher green emission standards by 2023.
For Addison Lee chief executive Liam Griffin, it meant a choice: invest in plug-in hybrid cars, or “go full electric” and stump up millions for a new fleet of electric cars.
5 Year plans didn’t work well in the Soviet Union either.
Ever since the federal government signalled an open bar for subsidies for the electric vehicle industry, the list of companies wanting to set up shop in this country in exchange for taxpayer cash just keeps growing. We learned recently that both Honda and Toyota have added their names to it. If the past is any guide, there’s a good chance Ottawa will give each of them a wad of Canadian taxpayers’ money.
When it comes to electric vehicles (EVs), the Trudeau government and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault are putting the policy cart before the technology horse.
If last week’s extreme cold temperatures over most of the country taught us anything, it’s that EVs just aren’t practical (yet) for a country this big and this cold.
Is it time to start asking whether electric vehicles have any redeeming value in 2024? Given the recent spate of bad news surrounding them, the answer to that question is becoming clearer.
As RedState reported, Ford has cut the production of its “Lightning” electric pickup truck in half. Why? Mainly because no one wants to buy them. Why do they not want to buy them? Because they are overpriced, unreliable, and impractical.
Throughout the Biden presidency, there’s been a constant refrain that eliminating fossil fuels will solve all our environmental problems. A big part of that narrative is the push to encourage, cajole, and force everyone into buying electric vehicles (EVs).
The Department of Fisheries is currently reviewing a taxpayer-funded electric auto battery factory in Quebec, owned by Northvolt, amid concerns of potential environmental impacts.
This review includes assessing the risk of wetland destruction and fish habitat harm, as first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter. Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s previous endorsement of the Northvolt plant as “the world’s cleanest,” these concerns bring a new dimension to the project.
The overwhelming majority of Americans said on Tuesday they are unlikely to consider buying an electric vehicle (EV). The poll comes as EVs strand drivers at their homes and off the sides of roads amid a winter freeze sweeping the United States.
Rasmussen Reports released the poll, finding that 65 percent of American adults said they are not likely to consider buying an EV when purchasing their next car — including 37 percent who said they are “not at all likely” to buy an EV. Fewer than 3-in-10 Americans said they would consider buying an EV.
OAK BROOK, Ill. – Electric vehicles may be the way of the future, but many EV owners are having trouble dealing with Chicago’s bitterly cold temperatures.
Public charging stations have turned into car graveyards over the past couple of days.
Not confidence inspiring.
h/t Mauser
Any feeling that the electric vehicle market was overhyped was confirmed this week when Hertz took the off-ramp on the EV highway. The car-rental giant plans to unload 20,000 cars, about a third of its American EV fleet, and make up the shortfall with regular gasoline cars.
Weak rental demand, high maintenance costs and low resale prices were behind the about-face. When Hertz began loading up on EVs – all of them Teslas – in 2021, the move was seen as a vote of confidence in zero-tailpipe-emission motoring for the masses. The reversal signals the opposite and Hertz is not alone. EV sales in North American, Europe and elsewhere are rising at ever-diminishing rates and China, the biggest EV producer, is stuffing thousands of unwanted battery-powered cars in fields, where they are left to rot.
