With new EV inventories beginning to increase on dealer lots, the auto industry has many challenges such as locating the buyers that may have serious concerns about a wide range of issues related to EVs including:
- driving range,
- vehicle reliability,
- price,
- the availability of electricity for the buildout of the charging infrastructure,
- charging time,
- the cost and lifespan of batteries and their environmental impact,
- the actual impact EVs will have on reducing carbon emissions,
- the growing statistics about uncontrollable fires of lithium batteries in EV’s,
- problems with battery recycling and end-of-life management,
- concerns that the EV free ride of usage of highways and not paying fuel taxes is about to end with the Vehicle Mileage Tax (VMT), i.e., more costs for the EV owners of the future,
- concerns that home chargers are destined to follow the UK and be on separate meters so that EV charging will be at higher rates to help stabilize the electrical grid, again more costs for the EV owners of the future.
Another problem for the automobile industry is convincing the buyers that its ethical, moral, and socially responsible to buy an EV, especially since most of the exotic mineral and metal supplies to build the batteries are being mined in developing countries with limited environmental regulation nor labor regulations.
Interestingly, the 2021 Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations – Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy does an excellent job of discussing the lack of transparency to the world of the green movement’s impact upon humanity exploitations in the developing countries that are mining for the exotic minerals and metals required to create the batteries needed to store “green electricity”. Complimentary to the book is a 2-minute clip from Michael Moore’s 2020 documentary film, Planet of the Humans, that’s been viewed by more than 14 million, that illustrates how so-called green electricity is made.
As the future is fast approaching, virtually all the automobile manufacturers, through government mandates to reduce the emissions of their fleet of vehicles, are going all-in to only manufacture EV’s in the coming years. To meet low emissions for their fleet of vehicles, we’re most likely going to see fewer and fewer hybrids as the auto industry manufacturers need to eliminate the gasoline engines in hybrids to meet those lower emission targets.
The problem is that manufacturers are loading up the “supply chain” with EV’s on dealer lots, but they’re not seeing the “demand” for EV’s coming from the public.
Read the rest of this piece at Heartland.org.
Ron Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.
Photo: courtesy Heartland.
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