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By Jo Nova
An expensive, razzle-dazzle climate referendum in Berlin aimed to bring forward “climate neutral” ambitions from 2045 to 2030, and no one even led a counter campaign, but it failed miserably:
Climate Referendum fails in Germany
Berliner Morgenpost
Berlin. The referendum for more ambitious climate goals in Berlin has failed. The state election authority announced on Sunday evening that the required minimum number of yes votes had not been reached.
An alliance “climate restart” wanted to achieve a change in the state energy transition law with the vote. Specifically, Berlin should commit itself to becoming climate neutral by 2030 and not by 2045 as previously planned.
Of 2.4 million voters in Berlin, the Yes camp needed 608,000 voters (or 25%) to turn up and agree in order to win. While 860,000 people turned up to vote, only 442,000 said “yes” and 420,000 said “no”. Essentially 82% of the total voter population either didn’t want it, or couldn’t be bothered turning up.
Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone reports it was a crushing defeat
He says “It’ll take a longtime for the radical climate activists to recover from this major setback”. Apparently the […]
By Jo Nova
Save the world with disposable EV’s?
After children in the Congo have dug out the cobalt for the blessed batteries we’d hope the cars would be sustained as long as possible. Alas, apparently there is just one more design flaw on top of the low mileage, delays, expense, spontaneous fires, and the need for a whole new grid.
After a minor accident, no one quite knows how to assess the safety of the battery, so it’s easier to throw it away. That means more waste in the landfill and higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of writing off near new cars. Where are the Greens? If child slaves and emissions matter, isn’t it better to reduce consumption by saving your old car from landfill, especially if your new one might end up there as well? Reduce, reuse, recycle…
Meanwhile the UN is demanding Net Zero targets, which are not even theoretically possible, be achieved ten years sooner. Half the technologies we need are not even invented yet. Infinity-minus-ten is a number that won’t get you to work, but it powers whole careers at the UN.
h/t David and Notalotofpeopleknowthat
Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have […]
A sign in Rockhampton. Where do they mention the fine though? | Photo by RegionalQueenslander
By Jo Nova
Block a sacred weather-changing EV from a charging point and you may have to sell your car
Feel the fear. The whole EV fantasy is coming undone as people miss planes, get stuck in cars, or ruin holidays because their battery is flat. There aren’t enough chargers, and charging is slow. In abject desperation, some Australian states are slapping monster fines on to make inadequate infrastructure stretch further, or because they realize how vulnerable they are to a protest campaign. Either that or they are actually trying to finance the transition to NetZero through parking fines. Call it a secret subsidy…
Victorians may be hit with a $370 fine if they drive a normal car and accidentally park it in an EV charging spot, thus depriving a sacred EV user of the chance to top up. You might think that’s wildly out of proportion — it’s only $100 less than if you recklessly run a red light. But it’s nothing compared to what NSW, Queensland and the ACT are doing. Drivers in these states who make the same mistake could […]
By Jo Nova
The magic of the free market was suddenly applied to EV sales last month. Tax credits and subsidies for electric cars in the EU and China ended on January 1, and sales promptly halved.
So half the entire EV market apparently only existed because governments took money from poor people to help rich people buy EV’s. Everyone wants nice weather in 100 years, but no one wants to pay for it.
Let’s all sing “equity”.
EV sales collapse as subsidies and tax credits come to an abrupt halt
American Journal of Transportation
The global electric vehicle (EV) market is reeling from one of the most dramatic collapses in monthly sales to date, with Rystad Energy research showing that only 672,000 units were sold in January, almost half of December 2022 sales and a mere 3% year-on-year increase over January 2022. The EV market share among all passenger car sales also tumbled to 14% in January, well down on the 23% seen in December.
The US is a ray of hope for the industry. Not because American EV’s are necessarily better but because of “better” government interference:
EV subsidies in many […]
By Jo Nova
The impossible conundrum: Going Netzero cancels your ability to get to Netzero
The industrial death spiral grows: Europe is the king of renewables and it’s also got the most expensive energy in the world making it impossible for the EU to make the things it needs to get to NetZero.
The EU lost their solar panel factories to China years ago, and the wind industry was worried they were going the same Sino way the solar industry went. A few months ago, the Vestas chief admitted that they were losing money on every wind turbine they sell. (Good thing their orders were collapsing, eh?)
Now the Volkswagen chief warns that things are so expensive, it soon won’t be viable to make electric cars and batteries in Europe either — which must be a bit of nasty surprise given that they just started building the first of six planned battery factories in Europe.
How fast those balance sheets change…
Naturally, the whole industry is calling for more subsidies. Obviously they can’t ask for what they really need, cheap energy.
‘We are treading water:’ An energy crisis is grinding European industry to a halt as the U.S. and […]
More deadly than man-made climate change
Six people have died in New York this year so far due to house fires started by e-bikes. I had no idea.
Fires from exploding e-bike batteries multiply in NYC — sometimes fatally
Matthew Schuerman, NPR
NEW YORK — Four times a week on average, an e-bike or e-scooter battery catches fire in New York City.
These bikes when they fail, they fail like a blowtorch,” said Dan Flynn, the chief fire marshal at the New York Fire Department. “We’ve seen incidents where people have described them as explosive — incidents where they actually have so much power, they’re actually blowing walls down in between rooms and apartments.”
As of Friday, the FDNY investigated 174 battery fires, putting 2022 on track to double the number of fires that occurred last year (104) and quadruple the number from 2020 (44). So far this year, six people have died in e-bike-related fires and 93 people were injured, up from four deaths and 79 injuries last year.
In early August, a 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant, identified as Rafael Elias Lopez-Centeno, died after his lithium ion battery caught fire […]
“With an EV, you don’t eliminate emissions, you just export them.
You have to dig up about 500,000 lbs of material to make a single 1000lb battery
It takes 100 to 300 barrels of oil to manufacture a battery that can hold one barrel of oil equivalent.
Demand for those minerals (Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel) will increase between 400 and 4000%.
There’s not enough mining in the world to make enough batteries for all those people.”
…
9.9 out of 10 based on 82 ratings
Apparently only 0.3% of cars in Florida are currently EV’s, which is lucky, because after the Hurricane Ian a few of them are catching fire. Imagine what happens when all the cars are EV’s and firefighters need to pour on 100,000 liters of water and stick around for hours to baby sit what’s left:
Electric vehicles catching fire in Florida after Hurricane Ian
David Propper, New York Post.
Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer and state fire marshal, said on Twitter.
“There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian,” he tweeted. “As those batteries corrode, fires start.
“That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale.”
@JimmyPatronis …
At least one other twitter account North Collier Fire Rescue reports that “I’m in Naples there have been multiple fires like this in areas impacted by Ian.”
In the twitter thread people warn that that they shouldn’t be using water to put out a lithium battery fire, but there is so little that anyone can do to stop these fires, that pouring hundreds of gallons of water a minute continuously is the official […]
In early June an incident of extreme-climate change-policy hit a car park in India at 5am.
UPDATE: As commenter DLK says it’s a case of “sudden vehicle death syndrome (SVDS)”.
Sudden energy release in car park.
Imagine if this happened in an apartment block basement while people slept above it?
100 vehicles catch fire in Delhi’s Electric Vehicle charging station – India.
Batteries News
A massive fire broke out in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar electric vehicle parking station. A total of seven fire tenders reached the spot to douse the raging fire.
The authorities are yet to conclude the reason for the fire. However, it could have happened because of a short circuit. As per reports, nearly 100 vehicles parked caught fire in the accident. But no one got injured.
As many as 30 new e-rickshaws, 50 old e-rickshaws, 10 private cars, 2 scooters and a motorcycle were gutted due to the fire spreading through the parking lot. The Delhi Fire Department received the call at 5 AM.
This is not an electric vehicle-related fire. … There are several hazards in the fuel pumps as well. We have seen […]
So a lady tried to drive an EV from New Orleans to Chigago and back in less than four days with a car that had a battery life of 310 miles on a trip that was 2,000 miles long. She saved $100 in fuel but the fast chargers weren’t fast, the waits were inconvenient, and then there was the stress and uncertainty of just not knowing, and of wandering around unknown streets on foot, waiting for the car to charge, and trying to make appointments that failed. It took 12 hours to drive a 7.5 hour trip on the way there. But on the return as the weather got worse, so did the battery mileage. Just when you need it, it isn’t there… they ended up getting only 4 hours sleep on the last night so they could allow long enough to fit in the charges on the last leg.
Remember, you’re suffering so your great-grandchildren won’t have too.
Joel B. Pollak, Breitbart
The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend on a four-day road trip from New Orleans to Chicago and back in an electric vehicle (EV) that ended up as a disaster — one that left […]
An electric bus in Paris self immolated last Friday.
There were no injuries, apart from the bus itself, presumably because there were no passengers.
Note how little time all the passengers on a packed bus would have had to get out.
Just four weeks ago another Bolloré brand electric bus caught fire in Paris. A passer-by saw smoke and told the driver, and everyone on board got safely off before the situation got out of control. In response to this second explosion all 149 similar Bolloré brand Bluebuses have been withdrawn from circulation. The RAPT points out that “it has been operating electric buses since 2016 without any major incident”. But I think everyone can see what might have happened.
Buses are killing other busses though:
In late September 2021 a large fire event in Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen (SBB)’s depot, in Gaisberg, destroyed 25 buses. A first assessment by the police, reported on many German media, said that the fire could have been caused by an electric bus during charging procedure.
From Notalotofpeopleknowthat
h/t b.nice
10 out of 10 based on 55 ratings
Do EV’s make good reefs?
h/t to Paul Homewood who notes The BBC didn’t mention the burning lithium battery story.
The Felicity Ace cargo ship caught fire on Wednesday last week:
German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that an internal email from Volkswagen USA stated that the ship was carrying 3,965 vehicles of the VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini brands.
It’s not clear if the fire started in an EV battery but once the flames got into them, the ship was abandoned to burn.
According to a study done in 2013 by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Development, the batteries burn extremely hot and produce noxious gases.
“In the event of a lithium ion battery catching fire, it is important to note that such a fire reaches very high temperatures, produces toxic gases and is inextinguishable,” the report concluded. — The Independent
Five days later the fire has finally run out of material to consume.
Now Felicity Burnt. | Reuters
Luxury cars on fire on cargo ships is a thing now
March 12th, 2019: The Grande America caught fire with 2,000 luxury cars on board and sank.
[…]
We’ll be teaching our children different fire safety lessons soon — starting with “don’t try this IN your home?”.
All the kilojoules came out at once.
Commentary sent with the video:
The battery of a scooter explodes while it is being charged. The person still had the presence of mind to remove the socket, but it was too late because the chemical reaction was already underway. This is what firefighters fear when it comes to electric cars.
As well as the battery of your ebike! Charging in a fireproof box or outside is not a luxury.
h/t Alistair P, and Helen D.
10 out of 10 based on 82 ratings
VW e-Up | Photo by M 93
A German car reporter bought a new VW e-Up car in Wolfsburg and drove the 650 km to Munich. But the weather was freezing and to get further on each charge Lisa Brack kept the heating off most of the time. She still needed three charging stops and took 13 hours to get home.
Gosselin said that a diesel car would usually finish that trip in seven hours without a fuel stop (and with a heater running).
13 hours of driving and charging
The subfreezing weather was a major drawback for the VW e-car. According to the kreiszeitung.de, “the heating stayed off for almost the entire journey in freezing temperature” in order not to draw down the battery so quickly. This meant that to survive the trip, Brack had to take along a generous supply of “hats, scarves, gloves and generally warm clothing”…
According to the kreiszeitung.de, she made the crucial mistake of charging up too seldom and wasted much time charging the batteries to 100% instead of 80% (the last 20% take the longest). “Charge faster, accept a little less range and charge […]
…
The people don’t really want Electric Vehicles, so the US Government is thinking of forcing them on the buyers by squeezing the industry that makes them. There is talk of new rules which apply to the companies selling cars. The control of production could be hidden in something called the Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE standards. By averaging the fuel consumption across a whole company, those brands will have to find a way to sell more EV’s and to limit their own sales of gas guzzlers. It’s a supply and demand thing, if a company can only make so many large internal combustion engine cars, the prices of those will be artificially high. Only the wealthy will be able to afford them. The poor will still pay more for cars than they do now, but the cheapest cars on the market will be EV’s — subsidized by inflated prices on petrol driven cars.
This is just a thought bubble for now, but obviously, the message is to buy your big cars and look after them. They’ll be hot property in the second hand market.
Say goodbye to the free market: The Soviets would be proud of […]
So the worlds car manufacturers are lining up: The Volkswagon group and GM are going “full electric” — so they say. Ford Motor Co claims its line-up in Europe will be fully electric by 2030, while Tata Motors unit Jaguar Land Rover said its luxury Jaguar brand will be entirely electric by 2025.
But Toyota and Honda are not.
At least investors (and consumers) have a choice. Presumably , the US Democrats will want to change that.
Toyota Warns (Again) About Electrifying All Autos. Is Anyone Listening?
Bryan Preston, PJ Media
When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market, it’s probably worth listening to. This week, Toyota reiterated an opinion it has offered before. That opinion is straightforward: The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.
Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research Robert Wimmer testified before the Senate this week, and said: “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability.”
Of those, “Consumer Acceptance” is the easiest thing to change (especially with a law and the right amount of jail time).
[…]
The UK parliament has decided to phase out fossil fueled cars entirely by 2040 or even 2035, but right now only 4% of the UK public are even planning to buy an EV, which makes it a very forced transition. Forty four percent say they won’t even be ready in fifteen years time, and a quarter effectively say “over my dead body”.
Half of Britons say a 2035 deadline to switch to an electric car is too soon!
Rob Hull and Grace Gausden, ThisIsMoney.co.uk
But despite the growing availability and wider selection of motors to choose from, a survey commissioned by the SMMT found that almost half of drivers are not only unprepared to make a transition to zero-emission motoring now but don’t think they will be in 2035 – five years ahead of the existing deadline for the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars to be banished.
A quarter (24 per cent) of the 2,185 drivers interviewed claimed they don’t foresee themselves ever buying an electric car in their lifetimes, despite the impeding ban in 2040.
96% say they are not even thinking of buying one at the moment Hardly anyone […]
Don’t try this at home:
Premature energy release can ruin your whole day.
h/t Jim Simpson
9.7 out of 10 based on 51 ratings
This could’ve been us, Australia, if Bill Shorten had won two more seats.
One week ago in California:
Tesla drivers are stranded for hours in a half-a-mile-long line
Shanon Stellini was travelling through Kettleman City on November 30 when she stumbled across a backlog of around 50 of the electric cars waiting to recharge in a half-mile line outside of at a station near Interstate 5. — Luke Kenton Daily Mail.
Tyler Durden, Zerohedge
There are now around 400,000 Teslas on the roads of the U.S. and the company’s commitment to hoarding its cash by any means necessary, including not paying bills and not investing in its Supercharger network, could finally be coming back to bite its owners in pronounced fashion.
The Kettleman City Supercharging station has 40 superchargers, is halfway between LA and San Francisco and people were returning from Thanksgiving.
Looks like Tesla owners need a back-up “baseload” type car in the garage all year to be able to enjoy those special days. There go those fuel savings.
Though they could just fly. There go those fuel savings and those emissions… …
The national electric car trap: What looks cheap, sounds fashionable but will […]
It’s a diesel powered electric car point:
The fossil fueled electric car…
It’s becoming a joke all around the world — the EVs in Australia powered by dirty diesel. But what’s the difference? Most EV’s in Australia are running on fossil fuel — the generators are just hidden behind longer extension cords. (Ones that carry 240,000V). EV’s on our grid are running on 80% fossil fuels every day.
The sign on the charger above says “Nullarbor” — the vast treeless and grid-free centre of Australia — but this is actually a test site in Perth (the trees were the giveaway).
The 3,000 kilometer trip across the Nullarbor from Perth to Adelaide is such an achievement for an EV that it’s practically a news story each time one makes it. Electric Car owners carry a chip about not being able to drive across the country like any real car owner could. So Jon Edwards, a retired engineer from Perth, set up this test site in his backyard. He wanted to know if it could be a realistic stop-gap for our far remote roads.
To me, this looks like a chain of efficiency losses going from diesel to mechanical to electrical […]
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