“EV’s – Electric Vehicles”

Simrat Sooch of Stoney Creek, Ont., was a true believer in electric vehicles.

“The first one I had was very reliable,” said Sooch, so he didn’t hesitate to trade up.

He bought a 2017 Ioniq made by Hyundai. Sooch was its second owner. The vehicle had already been driven 69,000 kilometres but the warranty covering the electric charging system and battery was good for 160,000 kilometres.

The true cost of EVs is masked by a litany of subsidies, transfers, and other expenses that are passed on to Americans who don’t own EVs, the report states.

Despite predictions that electric vehicles (EVs) will soon be cheaper than gas-powered cars, a new study argues that the “socialized costs” of EVs, or the amount that is not paid by the buyer but by all Americans in the form of taxes, subsidies, and higher electricity costs, can sum to as much as $48,000 per vehicle over its expected 10-year life.

Here’s a story that by my account, flew relatively under the radar—according to an October Facebook post by an organization of firefighters in Hollywood, Florida:

At a Chinese-run lithium mine in Namibia, local workers have complained for months about squalid living conditions and unsafe work practices.

An August fact-finding mission by the Mineworkers Union of Namibia into the Uis mine — which is operated by Chinese mining company Xinfeng Investments — found that the mine’s local employees live in tiny, hot shacks made of corrugated zinc and without proper ventilation.

The union also faulted a lack of privacy in the sanitation blocks, where toilets and showers are lined up without partitions between them. By contrast, the mine’s Chinese workers have comfortable air-conditioned rooms and decent bathrooms.

Provincial and federal financial support to develop electric vehicle batteries will cost $5.8 billion more than government projections, the Parliamentary Budget Office said Friday morning.

An analysis of government support for the EV battery deals with Northvolt, Volkswagen and Stellantis-LGES said that over the next 10 years, that support will amount to $43.6 billion, rather than the announced costs of $37.7 billion.

The deals with the three manufacturers amount to production subsidies of $32.8 billion, with an additional $4.9 billion in support to build the facilities.

A new study shows that electric vehicles (EV) are being driven much less than than their gas-powered counterparts, suggesting that the claimed emission-reducing benefits of the big push for an EV transition are overblown.

Americans behind the wheel of fully electric cars drove nearly 4,500 miles per year less than they did gasoline-powered vehicles, according to a recent study that sought to quantify EV mileage in the United States.

In possibly the worst decision since the Avro Arrow, the Prime Minister says Toyota won’t see the same electric-vehicle assembly incentives as VW and Stellantis

In a seemingly much-ignored story last week, the Toronto Star claimed that “Ontario’s hopes for a Toyota EV factory [are] in jeopardy after Justin Trudeau says no more massive subsidies.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking. There’s something dreadfully wrong with this picture. Surely, the Star has misquoted our fearless leader. The man who’s never seen a bar tab he wasn’t willing to pick up — at the taxpayer’s expense, of course — is suddenly developing a sense of budgetary discipline? Surely, Hell hath frozen over.

Canada would be better off if lead by a dim bulb High School student.

Here comes a forecast: the electric vehicle will not replace the vehicle with an internal combustion engine, ICE. The EV will become a supplement, a niche vehicle, but the bulk of our individual transportation will still take place in an ICE-powered vehicle.

You can thank America for this.

We Americans love our automobiles. We have more vehicles per household than most Europeans do, and we generally pay less for the same vehicle. This means, of course, that we can buy ‘more’ vehicle for the same money as Europeans can, but we can also buy much bigger and fancier vehicles than you commonly see on European roads.

As the Biden administration hails America’s “historic transition to electric vehicles” over the next decade, and carmakers pledge that they are revamping their production lines for an electric future, one group has been left out of the conversation thus far—consumers.

Now consumers are having their say.

With battery electric vehicles (EVs) sitting unsold on dealer lots, carmakers are slashing prices in a desperate attempt to move them, and suffering billions in losses along the way.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm gave Americans an unintended glimpse of the future during her road trip this summer touting the wonders of electric vehicles. Far from spotlighting the promise of EVs, her public relations misadventure in Georgia involved one of her staff in a gasoline-powered vehicle blocking off a coveted charger in advance of her arrival, leading to frayed tempers and a local EV owner calling the cops. It was an illustration of the challenges drivers could face as governments push the public to embrace plug-in vehicles.