http://www.torontosun.com/2017/08/19/electric-cars-why-you-cant-get-there-from-here
Electric cars: Why you can’t get there from here
By Lorne Gunter , Edmonton Sun
First posted: Saturday, August 19, 2017 05:21 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, August 19, 2017 05:39 PM EDT
Excited for the coming electric car revolution?
Well then, get ready for a lot of “staycations”.
And I don’t mean the kind where you stay in Canada rather than driving to the States.
I mean vacations where you stay home. In your hometown. Your own home, even.
Not even the newest, fully electric cars have ranges of more than about 400 kms – and that’s the expensive models in ideal conditions.
Cheaper models will have shorter ranges, still, as will all models in winter.
Want to ski and drive electric? Get ready to take the bus.
Fat chance you’ll be able to drive your e-car to the hill and back in many cases.
In case you haven’t noticed, there are few recharging stations around.
The feds, and several provinces and municipalities, are pumping hundreds of millions of tax dollars into erecting charging stations, as are a few commercial landlords.
Frankly, I resent having my tax dollars pay to subsidize electricity stations over gas stations.
But think about this: If anyone truly believed electric cars were going to be viable soon, don’t you think entrepreneurs and private companies would be jumping into the charging market?
Yes, retailers such as IKEA and Canadian Tire have announced plans to build stations at some of their stores, but that’s mostly because one level of government is paying for them. By and large the retailers aren’t.
Let’s say Ottawa and Ontario come up with the $120 million or more needed to pay for a string of charging stations every 200 km from Winnipeg to Toronto. (They’re in the works.)
Chances are the chargers will be the cheaper ones that can accommodate only one or two cars at a time and take six to eight hours to fully top up a battery.
Even assuming you never have to wait in line for one of these plug-ins, stopping every 200 km over the entire 2,300-km route, a one-way trip would take a full work week, or longer.
And then consider the chances we can all have electric cars if we want them.
The cultish leader of the e-car hysteria, Tesla, has nearly 400,000 orders for its latest, cheapest Model 3.
But this month it will manufacture just 100 of them.
Maybe – maybe – by December it will be churning out 20,000 a month. Maybe.
Then there’s the fact e-cars still cost substantially more than comparable gas or diesel models and are only attractive to buyers where there are big, fat tax-funded subsidies for buying one.
This spring, Hong Kong stopped paying citizens subsidies to buy electrics and, suddenly, sales all but stopped.
There is growing recognition that most Western countries are near their electrical generating capacity, as well.
To produce the electricity needed to recharge millions of new electric cars might require some jurisdictions to reopen coal-fired power plants.
If that happens, the environmental benefits would disappear.
And it’s hard to imagine politicians or environmentalists getting enthusiastic about building more dams or nuclear plants.
There is also increasing evidence that mining the lithium and building the batteries needed to run all these electrics vehicles would produce just as much greenhouse gas as building and running gasoline cars.
Is it possible that over the next 10 to 15 years as much as 15% of the North American vehicle fleet will be electric? Sure, that’s possible.
However, unless there are huge (and as yet unforeseen) improvements in e-car technology and e-driving infrastructure, the predicted “revolution” will be a long time coming.
For the time being, it will be mostly confined to well-to-do couples and families that can afford a second car, one of the electric kinds, to use mainly in town for commuting and running errands.
Electric cars: Why you can’t get there from here
By Lorne Gunter , Edmonton Sun
First posted: Saturday, August 19, 2017 05:21 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, August 19, 2017 05:39 PM EDT
Excited for the coming electric car revolution?
Well then, get ready for a lot of “staycations”.
And I don’t mean the kind where you stay in Canada rather than driving to the States.
I mean vacations where you stay home. In your hometown. Your own home, even.
Not even the newest, fully electric cars have ranges of more than about 400 kms – and that’s the expensive models in ideal conditions.
Cheaper models will have shorter ranges, still, as will all models in winter.
Want to ski and drive electric? Get ready to take the bus.
Fat chance you’ll be able to drive your e-car to the hill and back in many cases.
In case you haven’t noticed, there are few recharging stations around.
The feds, and several provinces and municipalities, are pumping hundreds of millions of tax dollars into erecting charging stations, as are a few commercial landlords.
Frankly, I resent having my tax dollars pay to subsidize electricity stations over gas stations.
But think about this: If anyone truly believed electric cars were going to be viable soon, don’t you think entrepreneurs and private companies would be jumping into the charging market?
Yes, retailers such as IKEA and Canadian Tire have announced plans to build stations at some of their stores, but that’s mostly because one level of government is paying for them. By and large the retailers aren’t.
Let’s say Ottawa and Ontario come up with the $120 million or more needed to pay for a string of charging stations every 200 km from Winnipeg to Toronto. (They’re in the works.)
Chances are the chargers will be the cheaper ones that can accommodate only one or two cars at a time and take six to eight hours to fully top up a battery.
Even assuming you never have to wait in line for one of these plug-ins, stopping every 200 km over the entire 2,300-km route, a one-way trip would take a full work week, or longer.
And then consider the chances we can all have electric cars if we want them.
The cultish leader of the e-car hysteria, Tesla, has nearly 400,000 orders for its latest, cheapest Model 3.
But this month it will manufacture just 100 of them.
Maybe – maybe – by December it will be churning out 20,000 a month. Maybe.
Then there’s the fact e-cars still cost substantially more than comparable gas or diesel models and are only attractive to buyers where there are big, fat tax-funded subsidies for buying one.
This spring, Hong Kong stopped paying citizens subsidies to buy electrics and, suddenly, sales all but stopped.
There is growing recognition that most Western countries are near their electrical generating capacity, as well.
To produce the electricity needed to recharge millions of new electric cars might require some jurisdictions to reopen coal-fired power plants.
If that happens, the environmental benefits would disappear.
And it’s hard to imagine politicians or environmentalists getting enthusiastic about building more dams or nuclear plants.
There is also increasing evidence that mining the lithium and building the batteries needed to run all these electrics vehicles would produce just as much greenhouse gas as building and running gasoline cars.
Is it possible that over the next 10 to 15 years as much as 15% of the North American vehicle fleet will be electric? Sure, that’s possible.
However, unless there are huge (and as yet unforeseen) improvements in e-car technology and e-driving infrastructure, the predicted “revolution” will be a long time coming.
For the time being, it will be mostly confined to well-to-do couples and families that can afford a second car, one of the electric kinds, to use mainly in town for commuting and running errands.
