Sales of electric vehicles are 66% higher this year than they were last year.
Joe Biden, the Vice President of the United States, encourages them by making statements such as “There’s no turning back” and “The great American road trip is going to be fully electrified.”
Some states with a political ideology leaning to the left have taken steps toward outlawing gas-powered vehicles entirely in an effort to ensure that we have no choice in the matter.
The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has issued an executive order that would outlaw them in the year 2035. California’s example was followed by Oregon, Massachusetts, and New York. The officials in the state of Washington claimed they would make it happen even more quickly, by the year 2030.
Thirty countries have announced that they will stop producing gasoline-powered vehicles in the near future.
But this is a ridiculous argument. It is not going to take place. It’s wishful thinking at best.
In my most recent video, I discuss some “inconvenient” facts about electric automobiles as well as some simple truths that politicians and environmental activists don’t appear to be able to comprehend for some reason.
Mark Mills, a physicist at the Manhattan Institute, has the following to say about electric vehicles: “They are incredible.” However, there will be no meaningful shift in the future use of oil or emissions of carbon dioxide as a result of their actions.
The first inconvenient fact is that increasing the number of sales of electric vehicles will not significantly cut down on the amount of oil used.
Mills estimates that there are currently 15–18 million electric vehicles on the road worldwide. If we could (somehow) get to 500 million, it would cut the usage of oil around the world by around 10 percent. That is not absolutely nothing, but it does not put an end to the consumption of oil.
Even if there was a way to convert all vehicles to electric power, there is still another obstacle to overcome: electricity is not very environmentally friendly.
I can’t help but giggle when I chat to my friends about how pleased they are about their electric automobile, presuming that it doesn’t destroy the environment. When I ask them “Where does the electricity for your car originate from?” they get quite quiet.
They are clueless about it. They haven’t even given it a second consideration.
The second inconvenient fact is that while driving an electric automobile contributes very little to the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the generation of the electricity that is used to charge its battery does. The majority of the United States’ electricity comes from the combustion of coal and natural gas. Only 12% of our energy comes from renewable sources like wind or solar.
That is not something that is advertised by car manufactures. According to statements made by Ford’s Linda Zhang in an interview with the BBC, “electric vehicles in general are better and more sustainable for the environment.”
I tell Mills, “She’s an engineer for Ford,” and she nods her head. “She does not lack intelligence.”
He responds by saying, “She’s not foolish.” “But your knowledge speaks volumes about your level of ignorance. For the production of a single battery, it is necessary to extract from the earth a total of 500,000 pounds of various minerals and rocks.
Since mining in the United States is made more difficult by restrictions, the majority of it is done in other countries, which pollutes other nations. Children are responsible for some of the mining work. A portion of it is done in locations that make use of slave labour.
According to Mills, “If you’re worried about carbon dioxide,” the electric vehicle has already released between 10 and 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide (from the mining, manufacturing, and shipping processes) before it even arrives at your driveway.
“Volkswagen published an honest research (in which they) point out that if you drive an electric vehicle for the first 60,000 miles or so, that electric vehicle will have produced more carbon dioxide than if you merely drove a conventional vehicle,” the study reads. “Volkswagen published an honest study.”
To reduce emissions by merely 20 or 30 percent, which is not nothing but it’s also not zero, you would have to drive an electric car “100,000 miles.”
That is not the case.
It is less polluting to drive an electric car if you reside in New Zealand because the country has a lot of hydro and geothermal power. But in the United States, even your “zero-emission automobile” contributes a significant amount to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Politicians and others that sell electric cars don’t talk about this issue. The vast majority probably aren’t even aware of it.