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The audio above is a summary by MGUY Australia of a phenomenal lecture by Mark P. Mills at Hillsdale College, Michigan. Listen to this short clip twice, and you will be able to instantly rebut anyone who tells you nonsense about the EV hoax.
Contents
Policy basics
The average person should not consider an EV.
How Hertz abandoned EVs
Engineer George’s balanced view
Polymath Paul Sansonetti loves EVs.
Other counterpoints
1. Policy basics
The entire green scam, particularly global warming, was manufactured by Rockefeller groups and promoted by nearly a thousand of their “nonprofits.” My article about this is HERE.
The EV thing is another attempt to raise our debt by creating perverse incentives and removing any semblance of rationality from our tax structure. It gums up our commerce, makes us feel guilty about our successes and conveniences, and destroys our critical thinking.
2. The average person should not consider an EV.
Mark P. Mills tells us eleven reasons why. Cost, convenience, practicality, and depreciation are just a few. Government fantasy policies inevitably collide with reality—engineering, and physics. It doesn't take a genius to predict which will win out. The “great EV transition” the evangelists are crowing about can never happen.
Mills is a distinguished senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a contributing editor at the City Journal, a faculty fellow at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, director of the National Center on Energy Analytics, and co-founding partner in Montrose Lane, an energy fund. He was formerly a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Mills explains why EV mandates are designed to reduce personal freedoms rather than emissions. This summary of his lecture was abridged for readability.
Number one, EVs don't decrease oil use. The fantasy “net zero” policy fails to appreciate that oil is used for thousands of other products we rely on daily. Banning combustion cars will make virtually no difference in global energy consumption.
Suppose half the world's vehicles were electrically propelled and burned no oil. This is impossible to achieve anytime soon. But even if it were to happen, half of the world's vehicles becoming EVs would be a hundredfold growth from where we are today. Even if that were to happen, it might theoretically reduce the world's need for oil by only about 10 percent. This is not an existential threat to big oil.
EVs have risen from nearly zero a decade ago to more than 40 million globally today. Forty million is a large number of electric cars, but it didn't stop the growth in gasoline consumption. This year, gasoline consumption is reaching record peaks, blowing past the peak just before the great and feckless lockdowns during COVID.
Number two, EVs don't reduce CO2 emissions. According to our governments, this is why we're being forced into driving EVs. But it's a lie. The International Energy Agency's accounting bragged in the most recent report that globally, EVs are already avoiding 150 megatons of CO2 emissions. Sounds significant, but even were it true, it would be only about 0.4% of global CO2 emissions. The oil-burning war machines that are rampaging across Ukraine right now are emitting more new CO2 every six months than all the world's EVs combined have theoretically eliminated.
Number three, the mining necessary to manufacture EVs emits more CO2 than they might save. It's easy to tell how much CO2 is generated by combustion cars because you can look at the amount of diesel or petrol they burn, which is directly related to the amount of CO2. But with EVs, nobody knows because these vehicles' production and manufacture create an enormous carbon footprint that is nearly impossible to quantify.
A typical EV has a 1,000-pound battery, which means the fuel tank weighs 1,000 pounds. For a gasoline car, a traditional fuel tank weighs 80 pounds. That 1,000-pound fuel tank is made from complex chemicals and minerals that require mining of 500,000 pounds of rock. This requires huge machines burning diesel fuel. They're transported by other diesel-fuel-burning machines and shipped worldwide on ships burning diesel fuel. Coal-fired electric-producing power plants are required with big grinders to crush the rock, dissolve it to get the minerals, and so on. Manufacturing each car requires enormous carbon dioxide emissions.
Quantifying these emissions is challenging because of the labyrinthian global supply chains, much of which are in China. We don't know the total emissions required for a particular EV, and the estimates vary by 300%. At the higher end of this range, the emissions associated with building EVs are far higher than those you would save by never driving the gasoline car you turn in for the EV.
Fourth, EVs are as complex as combustion cars. One of the biggest lies spun by EV proponents is that they are more straightforward than combustion cars, so eventually, they will be cheaper, and then we would not need government mandates or subsidies. This is not true; they are just differently complex.
A conventional car has a relatively complicated thermomechanical engine with hundreds of parts and a straightforward fuel tank with a one-part fuel pump. An EV swaps the complexity. The drivetrain is a simple electric motor with one or two parts. The fuel tank is a battery with thousands of parts and welds, a cooling system, a structural system, power electronics, and safety systems. It's a very complex electrochemical machine that wears out and is difficult to make.
Despite the claims around the automotive strike where the workers were worried that they were losing their jobs because we were told the EVs were simpler, that's not true. EV labor is not lower than conventional vehicle labor. The labor just shifts to different places and people. The EV supply chain requires slightly more hours to make their product than a traditional car’s. It just shifts the labor elsewhere.
Number 5. Not enough minerals are being mined. As we've just heard, 500,000 pounds of earth and rock, or 250 tons, must be moved and processed to make one EV battery. At larger scale, the amount of elements and minerals required far exceeds our capacity to mine them. The lead times to open new mines are far longer than the ridiculous five-year targets to ban combustion cars.
The fundamental challenge EVs have is that a massive global forced EV rollout will require an increase in the mining of critical minerals like copper, nickel, aluminum, manganese, and lithium.
“Rare earth metals” are another problem. Those are not truly rare, but are more commonly mined in China because the EPA drove that market out of the US 25 or 30 years ago. To meet the goals of building as many EVs as were imagined by the policymakers would require an increase in global mining of these metals of 400 to 7,000 percent. So they started forcing subsidies and mandates into the system to meet those goals.
Even the International Energy Agency, which is an advocate of the all-EV path, has pointed out repeatedly that the world is not now mining enough of those metals, is not planning to mine sufficient of those metals, has no plans to mine that many metals of any kind, and further, by their analysis, it takes 10 to 16 years to open a new mine. It would require us to increase mining by 400 to 7000 percent using mines we can't build for 10 to 16 years. These, to say the obvious, are incommensurate goals. A simpler way to put it is that the whole idea is crazy.
Number six: EVs will get more expensive, not cheaper. The result of the demand for minerals and metals exceeding by many times the amount produced will be reflected in the prices, which will go through the roof. This means EVs will not be cheaper as time passes but will get more expensive. This is just another thoroughly debunked lie of the evangelists.
The mere pursuit, whether by fiat or subsidy, of getting that much more material mined out of the earth and put into machines like electric vehicles, windmills, and solar panels requires this massive increase in mining. The mere pursuit of that at a time when there aren't enough materials being produced will produce a gigantic price escalation. That makes a lie of the claim that these vehicles will inevitably become cheaper. They will inevitably become more expensive if we keep pushing harder to force the manufacturing system to acquire many materials that aren't readily available.
Number seven: EV charging infrastructure is expensive and complex. This includes not just the chargers or the power plants that generate the electricity but also the infrastructure to move electricity, which is analogous to the pipes and tankers that currently transport petrol and diesel. The numbers are gigantic.
Electricity is ethereal and easy to move. Gasoline is heavy and requires pumping. But it's roughly five to ten times more expensive to move a unit of energy as electricity than the same unit of energy as gasoline. It costs more for the hardware. It costs more to move energy in electron form than it does in the form of gas. To move the same amount of energy that goes through pipes, tanks, and trucks through wires and transformers is well known. We've been moving energy that way for a century. We know what the equipment costs and how much it will cost to swap out the tanks, pumps, and trucks for wires and transformers.
For the USA, it is about three trillion dollars.
Number eight: EVs will always be in the minority. There is a limited use case for EVs for those with off-street parking and the ability to charge and reduce pollution in city centers, but for most people, they don't make sense.
There's a good chance that EVs will rival the popularity on a per capita basis of horses circa 1900. If you look at the data, that's about where we'll get. Of course, there are many more cars than horses. Think of it this way. The average-priced car in the United States cost only about ten weeks of the average wage then.
That's why there are lots of cars.
Number nine, it's not about reducing emissions.
Many ways of reducing emissions don't require a blanket EV mandate. More efficient petrol engines would have a far more significant effect than forcing people to buy EVs.
Who would you subsidize? Well, rather than subsidize the wealthy who drive EVs and tax the middle class, if we're going to subsidize somebody, why don't we subsidize the lower-income drivers who drive long distances? These are the so-called super users. They constitute 10% of drivers and use 30% of all the gas in the United States. They tend to be the people who don't get subsidies. They tend to be the people who mow the lawns in Silicon Valley and drive their F-150s 80 or 90 miles to work and have to drive home.
Number 10, the goal is to take away your car. The real reason for all this isn't about saving the planet; it's all about taking away your vehicle and freedom. The IEA's net-zero plan is to decrease carbon dioxide and “increase the share of people who don't have a car.” Notice the deceptive sales language. They want to increase the “share” of homeowners worldwide who don't have a car from today's 45%. They want to increase that share to 70% of people not having a car by 2040 to meet their emissions goals. California, which is always eager to be on the leading edge of these kinds of dystopian trends, has explicitly stated that. And in their enshrined goals passed into law, they will require citizens shortly to drive 25% fewer miles a year, 25% fewer miles a year than they did 30 years ago. That's going to be the benchmark.
Number 11. You can't change human nature. This is the biggest reason why these EV mandates are doomed to fail. The trope is that we'll all share the cars and that nobody wants to own a private vehicle. But there are no trends like that anywhere in history. That's why the United States now has more cars than licensed drivers. Why do you need three cars? You can't drive three cars at once. Why do you own a personal vehicle? Why don't you share them all? Because we're human beings. We want our own stuff. Human nature isn't going to change.
As soon as you mandate something, you're essentially locking in technology that rapidly becomes obsolete and that would have been superseded by innovation had the market been allowed to do so. The key takeaway is that government fantasy policies cannot compete with electric battery vehicles' physical and engineering realities. And I'm glad to say that this will ensure that they never become the dominant form of transport and that the so-called EV transition will never happen.
Any of these reasons would be enough to stop the EV mandate madness if we were dealing with rational people.
3. Hertz’s EV debacle exposes the green tyranny scam
Hertz’s ambitious plan to electrify its rental fleet has failed, leading to significant financial losses, including a $1 billion impairment charge, plummeting stock prices and the resignation of CEO Stephen Scherr.
The company’s EVs were expensive to maintain, depreciated rapidly and were less popular with renters than traditional gas-powered vehicles, forcing Hertz to offload Teslas at heavily discounted prices.
The article argues that the push for EVs is part of a broader globalist agenda disguised as environmental stewardship, aiming to increase government control over individuals’ lives.
EVs are criticized for their high production and maintenance costs, reliance on environmentally destructive mining practices, and strain on power grids, challenging their status as a sustainable solution.
The author urges resistance against the globalist agenda, asserting that climate change is exaggerated and that EV mandates are a form of ideological overreach, using Hertz’s failure as a cautionary example.
This isn’t just about Hertz. It’s about the broader agenda being pushed by global elites under the guise of combating climate change. The EV mandate is a Trojan horse for greater government control over our lives, disguised as environmental stewardship. It’s a civil rights grab masquerading as a moral imperative.
Climate change is junk science. The alarmist predictions of doom have been repeatedly debunked, yet the globalist machine continues to push its agenda, using fear and guilt to manipulate the public. The EV craze is a prime example. Governments and corporations are pouring billions into electric vehicles, ignoring their flaws and the real-world consequences of their policies. Hertz’s experience is a microcosm of what happens when ideology trumps reality.
Electric cars are NOT green
EVs are not the panacea they’re made out to be. They’re expensive to produce, expensive to maintain, and rely on a supply chain that’s anything but green. The mining of lithium and other rare earth materials for EV batteries is environmentally destructive and often relies on exploitative labor practices. And let’s not forget the strain on our power grids, which are already struggling to meet demand.
But the globalists don’t care about these inconvenient truths. Their goal isn’t to save the planet; it’s to consolidate power and control. By forcing us to abandon gas-powered cars and embrace EVs, they’re not just dictating what we drive – they’re dictating how we live. It’s green tyranny, plain and simple.
Hertz’s failure should serve as a wake-up call. The company’s decision to offload 30,000 EVs by the end of 2024 is a tacit admission that the EV experiment has failed. Customers don’t want them, and businesses can’t afford them. Yet, governments around the world continue to push EV mandates, subsidizing the industry with taxpayer dollars and punishing those who resist.
The globalist agenda is clear: they want to control every aspect of our lives, from the cars we drive to the food we eat. They’re using climate change as a smokescreen to justify their power grab, and the media is complicit in spreading their propaganda.
It’s time to push back. We must reject the green tyranny and demand accountability from those who are pushing this agenda. Climate change is not the existential threat they claim it to be, and EVs are not the solution. Hertz’s debacle is proof that the emperor has no clothes.
Climate change is entirely junk science fabricated by globalists to destroy our peace of mind and convince us to surrender our autonomy without a fight.
4. Engineer George explains electric cars in terms that even a doctor like me can understand.
Here is the audio of my interview with him:
Our conversation examines electric vehicle technology, infrastructure, and practical applications from an engineering perspective. George approaches the topic by describing electric vehicles as tools rather than ideological symbols, emphasizing that their utility depends entirely on specific use cases and requirements.
George begins by establishing his engineering credentials and systems analysis background, which informs his practical rather than political approach to evaluating electric vehicles. He dissects current EV technology's technical advantages and limitations.
A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the fundamental simplicity of electric vehicles compared to internal combustion engines (ICE). George explains that electric motors are a well-established technology with fewer moving parts than traditional engines. This simplicity translates to lower maintenance requirements and easier manufacturing processes (Yoho comment: wrong; see above). He points to Tesla's success in commercializing existing lithium-ion battery technology rather than developing revolutionary new systems.
George delves into the performance characteristics of electric vehicles, highlighting their superior acceleration and torque response compared to conventional cars. This advantage stems from the immediate power delivery characteristics of electric motors. However, George notes that sustained high-performance operation presents challenges for battery cooling systems, as evidenced by sports car manufacturers like Porsche working to overcome these limitations.
Range limitations are an issue. Current electric vehicles typically achieve 300-400 miles of range under optimal conditions, but this decreases significantly in cold weather, during high-speed operation, or when towing. George decided against purchasing an electric vehicle, citing his need to tow trailers and make long-distance trips beyond current EV range capabilities.
The infrastructure discussion reveals the complex challenges facing widespread EV adoption. While home charging works well for urban commuters, the power delivery requirements for rapid charging stations comparable to gas station refueling times present significant engineering challenges. George explains that the electrical infrastructure needed for widespread fast charging would require massive investments and may face physical limitations in power transmission capabilities.
We also discussed energy systems more broadly. George emphasizes the distinction between energy sources (nuclear, fossil fuels, solar) and energy transport methods (electricity, fuel distribution). This led to a nuanced discussion of efficiency losses throughout the energy system, from generation through transmission to final use. He challenges simplistic "clean energy" narratives by highlighting the importance of considering the entire system's impacts rather than focusing solely on vehicle emissions.
The role of Tesla and Elon Musk: Tesla owners’ satisfaction rate approaches 90 percent, which is thought to be partly due to the charging stations. Other EV owners’ satisfaction is only about half.
While acknowledging Tesla's achievement in proving electric vehicles' commercial viability, George maintains a measured perspective on the technology's current limitations and future potential. He suggests that aesthetic compromises in current EV designs, driven by aerodynamic efficiency requirements, indicate that battery technology hasn't yet reached its necessary maturity. According to George, when electric vehicles no longer need to prioritize aerodynamics over aesthetics, it will signal that battery technology has advanced sufficiently.
Though approached from a systems engineering rather than a political perspective, George discussed environmental considerations. He acknowledges that local air pollution in urban environments decreases with EV use but notes that the overall environmental impact depends heavily on electricity generation sources and battery production methods. We also discussed energy infrastructure, including nuclear power, natural gas, and renewable sources.
Economic aspects of electric vehicle adoption: George notes that current market dynamics rely heavily on tax structures and suggests that many alternative energy technologies, including solar and wind power, would be economically unfeasible without government support. However, he also acknowledges that traditional fossil fuel industries have also benefited from various subsidies.
Throughout the conversation, George returns to his central thesis that electric vehicles represent an evolving technology with specific advantages and limitations rather than a universal solution. He draws a parallel with e-books, which, rather than completely replacing physical books as predicted, found their market niche and now represent about half of total book sales. [George misspoke: In 2023, e-book sales accounted for about 21% of US book sales.] This analogy suggests a future where electric vehicles might coexist with conventional vehicles, each serving different use cases rather than one technology completely displacing the other.
George says government intervention in markets delays natural correction cycles. However, he maintains a neutral stance on the political implications.
5. Polymath Paul loves EVs
Paul is a geek I respect who knows many fields, including cars. HERE is a short video he sent me that describes some of the latest sexy EV technology.
Paul notes that the internal combustion car (ICE) companies are now run by MBAs who have recently squandered the advantages their engineers gave them. Some pundits predict bankruptcy of the entire industry:
6. Other counterpoints:
An early reviewer of this post reacts:
George's perspective was limited. As much as he didn't want to be 'political,' there was a vast hole left by not addressing the resources needed to produce EVs. Not just the fact that fossil fuels are necessary to build the EVs and that many EV charging stations rely on fossil fuels, but also that there are devastating environmental and social impacts of lithium, cobalt and other mining operations around the world. It was reckless not to include this information.
George responded:
The commenter wants me to answer whether EVs or ICE cars are more or less environmentally beneficial. There is no way we could have gotten into that debate because it would take hours to establish the parameters for discussion.
How do you define environmentally beneficial? Based on overall carbon? Based on mining pollution for materials? Based on the impact on air from exhaust? Impact of more tire wear? A billion different aspects affect the “environment,” and everyone wants to discuss their pet topic. I focus on pollution (not CO2) because we pretty much know what it does to everything, including us. Others focus on ecological impact etc.
To understand the full impact of ICE vs EV, you must write a textbook covering all the aspects. That’s a BIG rabbit hole.
Paul defends George as well:
The latest Tesla batteries require no cobalt, and lithium is not scarce. While mining lithium requires water, the process is becoming more efficient annually.
I think that Tesla was originally supposed to make cars more expensive and less available. The reason Musk is now derided (this was written before his political activism) by the controled media is that as his innovations in design and production have matured, his car prices are dropping. [Paul is speculating that as Teslas become more reasonable, they no longer fulfill the goal of making up our system less efficient. I differ.]
Internal combustion heavy-duty pickup trucks and vans are crippled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s requirement of 35 miles per gallon by 2035. This led to bad decisions. For example, to save weight, carmakers stopped supplying spare tires. In some cases, they provide Fix-a-Flat, a can of aerosol spray that inflates and seals small punctures in a tire. However, this gums up the electronic tire pressure monitoring system, which is expensive to repair.
Another complaint was that EVs were less efficient in the cold. However, Teslas now have the same 15 percent reduction in efficiency in the cold as ICE vehicles.
Technology for EVs is still developing rapidly and we must not judge tomorrow by yesterday.
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