7 Reasons Why Electric Vehicles Wont Replace Gas Cars
Electric Vehicle Takeover Is Complete Speculation
Since 2010, three of the biggest countries have seen increase in sales of electric vehicles. Below is a graph of EV (electric vehicle) sales in Europe, China, and US for 2020.
Then there’s talk about if electric cars will replace gas cars by the year 2050. But is this likely to happen?
Although there are some benefits to owning an EV, such as paying nothing for fuel and no longer doing oil changes anymore; the costs seem to outweigh the benefits.
Here are 7 reasons why EVs will not be able to replace gasoline cars:
1.
Global Shortage Supply of Battery Resources
Here are the key battery resources that are in low supply:
Lithium, Nickel, and Cobalt to name a few.
With the rapid growing demand for electric vehicle production, manufacturers are scrambling to find these types of resources to assemble their battery parts together. And it isn’t looking good for the near future.
When asked:
Q: “Right now demand is outstripping supply; five years down the road, correct?”
JB Straubel, former Chief Technology Officer of Tesla said, “Correct.”
Q: “How worried are you about it?”
JB: “I am pretty worried…”
JB mentioned at this point that we would find more battery resources from the electronics that we recycle rather than results from new mining operations.
Not only do we have a global shortage for EVs, this means other electronics will feel the crunch as well.
So this begs the question, did gasoline vehicles cause this kind of shortage problem in the history of their production? The answer is: nope.
2.
Lack of Charging Stations
Currently, charging stations are lacking worldwide.
By 2030 the Biden Administration plans to install 500,000 new charging stations with a $15 billion budget. Currently there are about 42,000 charging stations today in the United States. To expand even further they would need a budget of $45 billion (for 1,500,000 new charging stations).
By 2035 (which has now been moved to 2050), the administration wants to completely ban new gasoline car sales. Yet it is clear we are nowhere near to having the infrastructure in place for an EV takeover, nor do we have the supplies as mentioned earlier.
Which means if you own an EV you’ll likely be stuck with driving within the city limits for the most part. Good luck finding charging stations out of town in the country road. They barely exist as the map above illustrates. Off-roading or exploring with EVs are not really on the table.
3.
Long Charging Times
Charging time also makes it a deal breaker if they’re meant to replace gas powered vehicles. Who would wait for hours to fill their gas at fueling stations?
It would take you 8 hours to charge an EV from completely empty-to-full on a 60kWh battery. This would be on a level 1 charge which is optimal for your car battery health.
For a level 3 charge you could get about 80% battery juice for your vehicle in about 30 minutes. However these level 3 charging stations will cost you more money, and it wears out your car battery faster than a level 1 charge.
For a gasoline car, filling up completely full would take you around 10 minutes for a V6 engine. And it doesn’t wear out your battery to fill up on gas this fast.
Clearly, a serious inconvenience of owning an EV. Time is money; and that’s a lot of time you spend not being able to get to where you need to be.
4.
GPS Tracker
If you plan on going electric that means all your movements will be tracked. Great for retrieving a stolen vehicle. Not so great for most people who prefer privacy. A big price to pay to sacrifice privacy for safety.
Sure, many modern day smartphones already come pre-installed with a GPS tracker; if not all. But at least you can leave your phone at home and travel without giving up your location in a gas powered vehicle.
Can you do the same thing with an EV? That is 100% negative.
As Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
And I agree with one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The costs outweigh the benefits. Which leads me to my next point.
5.
Cyber Attacks
Just a year ago, the Autopilot of the Tesla Model X was hacked, and not just once. At best the EV systems can only alert you of being hacked, but won’t be able to recover should someone have remote access to your vehicle. Scary stuff.
That means if your car gets remotely hacked at the wrong time, it could spell out disaster for you. The article mentions that someone had hacked the Tesla to steer in the wrong direction.
So if you’re driving in a crowded area or at higher speeds on the highway, what does that mean if you lose control of the vehicle? Maybe you get hacked at the most inopportune time while driving next to a mountain cliff 100 feet in the air?
A serious safety hazard to consider; not only for yourself but to those around you.
Thankfully gasoline cars don’t really have issues with this. As it seems EVs with their infotainment computers are the ones getting hacked more often.
6.
Gasoline Is Here to Stay
People have been debating this century about whether we’ll run out of gas and oil soon. It seems like even the experts got it wrong when making predictions:
In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines claimed that we would run out of oil by 1924.
In 1950, the U.S. Department of the Interior stated that we’d be out of oil by 1963.
Here’s what Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former Saudi oil minister said, “The stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones, and the oil age will not end because we run out of oil.”
You can bet that someone who lives in Saudi Arabia with abundant amounts of oil knows what they’re talking about. Since Saudi Arabia is the #1 biggest exporter of oil among all countries. Check out this post to learn more.
So I wouldn’t worry about gas disappearing anytime soon. There will be plenty of gas left to power our gasoline vehicles.
7.
Higher Costs
Problem #1: With the global shortage of battery resources, it will cost even more to mine new materials needed. Those higher costs will then be transferred unto the consumer when it’s time to buy a new EV.
Problem #2: All batteries die at some point in time. So the next question is, how much will a replacement cost? Currently, it would cost you in the five-digits to replace a typical EV battery. In 2017, it cost $15,000 to replace the battery of an EV Chevy Bolt.
And since it’s an electric vehicle, it automatically comes installed with a whole bunch of electrical sensors. Which means when you go for repairs, you’re going to be paying bigger bucks to diagnose and fix electrical issues.
As a good rule of thumb: the more sensors your car comes installed with, the more complex the electrical circuits. The more complex the electrical circuits, the more labor time charged to you to repair those circuits.
So in reality, you don’t really save much money compared to a gasoline vehicle when maintenance comes due.
Electric vehicles are good, but not enough.
Although EVs have their own benefits to society, it’s not likely they’ll ever be able to replace gasoline powered vehicles. Sure it’s good to have alternatives to gasoline such as electric, hydrogen fuel, and biodiesel.
But all things should be considered before we allow EVs to only be sold in North America by 2035 (now they bumped it to 2050).
Electric vehicles still pose serious problems that have not been fully vetted yet. And to push for only EV sales by 2035 by Canada and the Biden Administration would just be a dumb idea.
So there you go, 7 Reasons Why Electric Vehicles Wont Replace Gasoline Cars.
Be happy knowing you wont have to be forced to buy over-rated EVs anytime soon, get hacked while driving, or wait 8 hours at a time to drive your vehicle.
Enjoy your gasoline car, and maybe pop open a Mountain Dew the next time you go to the mountains. Because hey, your gas powered battery can handle it.
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