Is it just me? Or, does the push for EV's seem to be forced?

I feel like I need a reality check when it comes to auto manufacturers and their plans for fully electric vehicles in the relatively near term.

Let me start by saying that I LOVE many things about EV's! The mechanical simplicity that they offer, the flexibility of design, and the torque, OH MY HEAVENS...the torque!!!

Secondly, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed by any stretch...and I am sure that there are engineers and scientists out there that have this stuff all figured out.

But, what I do know is that an EV requires electricity to run on. And, while you CAN plug one into a little 110 socket; a toddler can crawl at about the same pace as the batteries will charge (1 - 3 miles of range added per charging hour).

The answer for home users is a Level 2 Charger - NOW we are talking...in just about 6 or so hours you can fully charge up your vehicle. (what does it take today to fill an 18 gallon tank? 3 - 4 minutes?) - Oh...and that charger will cost you about $1K - $2k to buy...and another roughly $1K for the install...and what do the tens of millions of people who live in apartment complexes or condos who don't have their own spot to put in a charger do?

The answer that we tend to hear is the one where EV's start to make some practical sense. A level 3 or "super" charger that can give a vehicle about an 80% charge in about 30 minutes. That time commitment is one that becomes more palatable. However, Level 3 chargers cost somewhere around $50K each!

So, let's say that we have a bunch of these Super Chargers available at Apartment Complexes, Train Stations, Malls etc. And, the car charges in 45 minutes. Guess what? Few people are running out when their car is fully charged to move it. They treat these spots like parking spaces! I saw one at a train station, and it had collected dust all over the car it had been there so long.

The next little obstacle in this push for EV's is that manufacturers advertise their max range - Say it's 250 miles. But, what they fail to adequately disclose is that they only recommend charging batteries to 80-90% of their max capacity. So, your 250 is immediately cut to 200 and then it gets further reduced by cold or hot weather using such options as heated seats, Air Conditioning etc. - Pretty quickly, you can find that your effective range at 50 miles per hour is about 3 hours of driving.

But EV's are good for the environment.

MAYBE...

I don't know about that one. Today, most batteries are composed of rare-earth minerals. The picture above is of a Lithium mine. That doesn't exactly scream environmentally friendly to me. And do we really think that the electricity that powers those EV's is "clean"? - Here's a statistic from US Energy Information Administration - approximately 60% of the US electricity comes from coal and natural gas. They combine for 98% of the C02 (1.4 billion metric tons) emitted annually in the production of electricity. By comparison, passenger vehicles emit about 1/2 of that amount in 2019. So, ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles are bad for the environment, but EV's may not be the environmental panacea that it seems to be made out to be either.

Oh, and since we all have a lot of experience in Supply Chain shortages as of late...Let's talk about the presumptive shortage of licensed electricians to get the tens of millions of level 2 and level 3 charging stations deployed throughout the nation (not just on the coasts).

Are EV's the solution? I don't know. Companies such as Volvo and Jaguar (All EV's by 2030) and GM (All EV's by 2035) certainly seem to believe that they are! They seemingly are betting the company's future that a holistic solution for a grid to support all of those vehicles in the next 10 or so years is inevitable. They obviously believe that consumers will be willing to live with the current limitations of EV's (or that there will be massive advances in battery and charging technology). I have full faith in the innovative brilliance that pervades our world for our best and brightest to overcome many of the EV challenges. Just recently scientists at The University of Michigan have discovered that they could use recycled Kevlar to create a membrane that could possibly quintuple the range of EV's! That would be game-changing. However, laboratory success is oftentimes quite a distance from large-scale commercial deployment.

It seems to me that we started down the road of a reasonable hybrid solution. In fact, we referred to them as Hybrids. Taking fuel economy on similar size vehicles from the low 30 mpg range to the mid 50's! CO2 emissions drastically reduced, no range anxiety, the ability to have the OPTION to plugin with certain models. The brilliance of the Chevy Volt using old WWII submarine technology to run on electricity and have a small gasoline engine that would recharge the batteries right on board. Hmmmmm...seems pretty smart.

Are EV's the answer? I'd love the hear what you think!

*UPDATE* - An interesting quote from the CEO of Stellantis (formerly Fiat- Chrysler)