America's #1 Online Cigar Auction
first, best, biggest!

Z, I’m starting to think you get a royalty every time you mention Dave’s bread.





“This message brought to you by Carl’s Jr.”

Thanks Tony.

Is it just me, or do some people seem kinda scared of EV’s?

If the Energy Departments announcement tomorrow about a break thru in fission is a repeatable experiment, and it can become viable in the timeframe I've heard rumors about ,it will makes EVs a lot more practical. It should also kill most of the other green energy bull.

YouTube would be wrong. Mr Fusion worked perfectly in Back to the future, so it must be true..... eventually

What you call fear, I prefer to call intelligent caution. You're the poster boy for the old saying "A fool and his money are soon parted". In typical Marxist fashion you want everyone to jump aboard your new liferaft "because" you got suckered in on a new toy. Do you see the Emperor's new clothes? How magnificent they are, because you tell us all the time. How silly we are for not seeing them. You got bamboozled. Somehow you feel that using child labor and diesel powered earth movers to strip mine the Earth for minerals is okay. All in nations that don't GAF about the environment nor human rights all in the name of dropping gasoline. Why? Because the Earth is dying. Let me be the first person to tell you that the Earth will be here after you die and will continue just fine as well. Man isn't affecting the Earth's ozone or C02 to the point of extinction. I get it, you're scared. You've been told the Earth is rapidly heating up and that's causing the place to crash and burn and you feel personally responsible or at least want the ribbon dujour upon your breast to show neighbors that are scared too that you're doing something. You hold your little fists up to the sky and curse gasoline stations as you pass them all while not even noticing the petroleum used to manufacture your shiny animal and environment friendly non- internal combusting engine. Why it doesn't even make a sound...how cute. Why the simple act of putting your new toy on the grid...the very grid that is most likely powered by nuclear or coal powered plants (GASP!) and that in some cases is the fault of brownouts and blackouts due to usage today will never be a problem as tax dollars are used to place charging stations so you can make it out of your county on a tank of electricity. I'll be the first person to tell you that the petroleum industry is NEVER going to go away. EVER. Meanwhile, each day there are more headlines that make anyone on the verge of plunking down close to 100K for a vehicle of your choosing wary. Wary that they're being scammed. Wary that it's not right. Wary of the dangers this vehicle is to the very environment people want to save. Please, tell us all how you're the leader of the EV and delight us with your newfound ways and rub all of our unwashed noses in it.

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/lithium-ion-battery-prices-rise-first-time

Must be because they want to make surre it's Merry Christmas for all.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/automaker-stellantis-lays-off-hundreds-american-workers-blaming-high-cost-making-electric-cars

Fa-La-La-La-La-La-La-La-Laaaa

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/12/11/aep-throws-his-toys-out-of-the-pram-again/

At least your comprehension is consistent….

Their grandparents prolly fought against electric light bulbs….

I want one, so include people accused of being a republican by people that resort to personal attacks when they haven't got a clue.

Did I say I disagreed with your videos?

You know what, you come up with an opinion or observation of you own and I would be happy to discuss it. But you don’t really have a thought on this other than what you are told in moving pictures - do you?
Rather than deal in facts, knowledge or logic, you just call it bad in emotional terms.

Oh, and you do come across and being mad, or at least ill mannered.

No macs, I’m a Principal Engineer with 35+ years in the field who actually owns an EV - not some spanky who cannot articulate their view other than to post an opinion piece on YouTube. What I write is direct experience and verifiable fact.

That is to say, I don’t need someone to speak for me.

Tell them you just ate a grilled cheese with Dave’s Killer bread.

(I just got another nickel!)

Neither do I. I'm not a "principal engineer", but I was a steam plant engineer... and I am able to read and comprehend.

What you're doing is extremely anecdotal. You want to make a difference? Stop using all power that isn't green. Don't charge your car with anything but wind and solar. What are you going to do with the batteries when they die? Are you aware of what mining for the lithium required for those batteries does to the environment?

Stop flying. Don't take diesel trains. In fact, don't order a damn thing from Amazon because anything you want is shipped on diesel powered boats to docks where they're offloaded with diesel powered cranes, and loaded on diesel powered trucks. Those UPS, Fedex, and USPS vehicles? Gas or diesel.

Much like the politicians who tell us we must go green while they fly around the world in YUGE jets with their YUGE limousines... your doing nothing more than virtue signaling.

Impressive, I was a Senior Engineer. On various projects, I've had a Nuclear Systems Ph.D. engineer that reported to me as well as PEs (Professional Engineers), and even a Civil engineer that was an author of concrete testing standards, sounds impressive, but I was just a mid-level manager. Meh.

Macs, as I said before I did not buy the car to save the planet. I bought in on the merits of the machine and the numerous upgrades it offered over the G37 I traded in. It's just a better car.

In fact initially I did not fairly consider the car because it was electric. But when I looked into it, and found that I could charge overnight at home (not everyone can) it was a no brainer.

And that is my point; EV's will gain in market share this decade for many practical reasons.
The fact that in the final analysis they are far more "green" than gas cars is icing on the cake.



And thank you for your options and thoughts.

And the pro's keep adding up for electric cars.

I've been accused of that many times, but it was merely a title.

Unfortunately, a lot was left out of the announcement. They used 192 2 Megajoule(MJ) lasers to fuse a tiny amount of Deuterium and Tritium to produce 3 MJ, They gained approximately 1 MJ or about 300 watts of energy. But, to power those lasers they spent about 300 MJ of energy. This type of fusion, if it ever actually becomes sustainable is 100's of years away. They would have to be able to sustain about 100,000 of these fusions per day in order for it to power a small city. Not to mention that Tritium is one of the rarest isotopes on the planet. Even if they captured every isotope of Tritium created in fission reactors it still wouldn't be enough to meet the amounts needed to make it work. This experiment was more a proof of concept, that fusion can be achieved in this way. Other labs have tried to recreate this experiment and failed.

The Tokamak plasma fusion reactors the Chinese and the EU built are much more promising. They've achieved temperatures of 100 mill degrees C. For comparison the core of our sun only gets to about 15 mill degrees C. But, they are decades away from commercial use. Material sciences need to catch up to make this technology viable.

As for EV's... All the materials mined for the batteries, the production of the batteries and cars use coal, oil and natural gas. The same are used to charge the cars throughout their lifecycle. When an EV reaches end of life there is currently no economically viable process to recycle these batteries. Any process to recycle these batteries would again require power produced by coal, oil and natural gas. EV's are not green yet. "Green" is a feelgood marketing term.

I'm not opposed to EV's at all. What I am opposed to is government intervention into a subsidy that taxpayers have to pay for to make it viable. Same thing is happening with EV's that happened with ethanol. Both cannot survive without the money taxpayers on the hook. EV's have a place but to scrap the existing manufacturing processes for cars, trucks and petroleum industry just because...hell no. The "science" shows that the planet isn't going to melt away any time soon despite the media's best efforts. Even if it was...nations like China, India, Pakistan and Russia won't be making effective changes until 2060. Shuttering our auto plants with a 30+ year window debilitates us as a nation even militarily.

Where I have a problem with it is in the right here and now. My needs are not going to be changing. We have horses and wildlife. They will need to be transported. That little Rivian toy isn't even up for going more than 200 miles on its own so I'm not going to "do the math" with a 30 foot 3 horse slant with living quarters trailer and 3 horses being towed by a F250 now. There are no stations that would allow that kind of rig to wheel up and charge and even if there were you and I both know that some dip$hit in a Tesla would take that space up in a heartbeat.

Then there are the homes that cannot and will not support an EV charger being added to it. The entire house would have to be rewired and that's tens of thousands for that before we ever get to the station and the car. We can quibble about what's powering the homes grid...for me its a coal plant. They're not shutting that off any time soon. They're not even talking about building a new nuclear power plant either. So all the talk about green ends right there for me. All you're doing is overburdening a grid that washes out when we have a bad lightning storm much worse when it's a Cat 1 hurricane. Cat 5...it doesn't matter, it's all going bye bye. So adding more...with the demand of EV's and their charging needs...a LOT more. Its not being thought out by the smartest people in the room at all. This (what's going on right now) reminds me of the Elmer Fudd cartoon where he's hunting a fly with a shotgun. Shooting the place up to the point there's no walls or ceiling and the fly...buzzes around him after the dust clears.

I'm more practical and cost effective when it comes to my personal spending. I buy and pay off my vehicles. My truck was brand new in 2011 and it's still running just fine. My trailers are paid for. My house is paid for. I just bought my wife her dream vehicle and it was a 2020 Jeep with less than 20K miles on it. I don't want to go into debt for the sake of saving the planet, which I cannot. Neither can you. Nor your kids. I'm quite positive that there will be another ice age before the place melts away. So, as you can see the EV isn't practical for me. I DGAF about being in a little car that doesn't make a noise starting up. I DGAF about being the fastest off the line because performance to me is longevity not finish line. I've been knee deep with GM and their electrical platforms in the late 80's and 90's. Worked in their engineering departments and design laboratories as well as their test tracks in Mesa, AZ and Milford, MI. They couldn't get it to work then. Now, Uncle Sam is giving them a subsidy and incentive to fail for free. It's still so experimental that I laugh when people talk all serious about no gasoline stations in 2030. Um...they're still going to be there. The sale of a new car in their locale isn't. That's the only difference. I see those goalposts moving back...and again...and again if not ripped out.

If I could be King of the County for a hot decade...I would really think about bullet trains with stations that are viable. Meaning that once you reach a station you could walk a few blocks and be at your destination. Buses with routes that are viable and EV's would be a virtue signal device or for local delivery. Nobody is talking about the bigger picture and that's signals to me that its going to fail. Not that I'm happy if it does. It means it wasn't thought out and we're paying again for the mistakes made by stupid people. I really hope the next time you see an article or YouTube that is opposed to your thinking that now you see where I'm coming from. Am I right? Maybe not. I know I'm not perfect. Understand that I've thought it out a few ways before I gab about it though. That goes for everything in my world. I'm using article that support my point of view or the experts for what I had thought to illustrate a point.

Stuck in traffic?

No, I work remote. I herd senior and principal engineers for a living! Sometimes feeding them pizza and Mountain Dew isn’t enough.

stePHan you’re sounding dangerously close to being a racist hate monger.

Like children, what good are they if you can have fun with them?

So you have brought up dozens of topics across five paragraphs……

So - maybe don’t buy and EV?
I guarantee you that you can keep your gas truck for the rest of your life - even buy a new on if you like. I figure you have a solid 30 years before a new truck purchase would force you into a non-gas truck. Maybe.
Hell, you can keep a truck running for 100 years….

Ford Motor Co. is weighing a deal with a Chinese battery manufacturer that would allow China to take advantage of massive U.S. tax breaks, according to a Bloomberg report.

The potential ownership structure between Ford and China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) would allow CATL to take advantage of tax benefits under President Joe Biden’s new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to Bloomberg.

The companies intend to build a multi-billion-dollar battery manufacturing plant in either Michigan or Virginia to provide lithium iron phosphate batteries for Ford’s line of electric vehicles. The plan gives Ford ownership of the plant, including all buildings and structures, but relinquishes control of factory operations and the technology used to build the car batteries to CATL, the outlet reported.

This ownership arrangement permits the Ford plant, although operated by a Chinese company, to receive production tax credits through the IRA, according to Bloomberg. The legislation expands the tax credits for manufacturers under Section 48C to credit companies 30% of the amount invested in new or upgraded factories that produce renewable energy components such as batteries for electric vehicles.

Ford announced in July that CATL was part of its secured battery supply that would provide 60 gigawatt hours of annual battery capacity after the Chinese car company said it was considering investing as much as $5 billion in building manufacturing plants in either the U.S. or Mexico, the outlet reported. (RELATED: New Federal Regulation Could Devastate Coastal Communities)

Republican Governors in several states have begun taking steps to protect critical state resources, like land and data, from falling into China’s control. Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem introduced legislation on Tuesday that would “prevent nations who hate us – like Communist China – from buying up our state’s agriculture land,” according to a statement.

“We cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue to buy up our nation’s food supply, so South Dakota will lead the charge on this vital national security issue,” Noem said.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office did not respond to Daily Caller questions about if the Virginia Governor supports the potential plan.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/12/15/china-us-ford-electric-car-michigan-virginia/


Guess who doesn't work for you?

Besides freezing door handles, Tesla owners who braved the cold this Christmas weekend were met with 'winter range anxiety.' As we explained last week, cold weather will degrade battery performance. At least one video went viral on Christmas Eve of a person whose Model S wouldn't charge in the cold at a Supercharger station.

Domenick Nati, 44, a resident of Lynchburg, Virginia, rolled into a Supercharger station Saturday afternoon with 19 miles left of charge. The Tesla's dashboard showed outside temperatures were 19 degrees Fahrenheit. He made a video about his awful experience over the last 24 hours. 

In a video posted on TikTok, Nati said battery issues began on Friday when his Tesla wouldn't warm up so it could charge. He tried charging at his house and a Supercharger station, but nothing seemed to work. In a last-ditch effort, he went to Supercharger station on Christmas Eve, where he experienced the same issues. 


Nati shows in the video that a Tesla alert pops up when he plugs the car into a Supercharger stall. It reads, "Battering is heating -- Keep charge cable inserted." 

He timestamped the moment he plugged in the vehicle at 1:11 pm. One hour later, he showed the same message with 19 miles range, which meant the car didn't charge. Then two hours later, he showed the same alert and no charge again. 

"Two hours went by and not much changed. 

"It was very slow and the numbers got lower as the temperature dropped. Eventually, it stopped charging altogether," he told Bussiness Insider. 

Nati abandoned the Tesla at the Supercharger station, fearing it would run out of juice. He canceled his Christmas plans because it was the only car he had, and adding Tesla customer support and or roadside assistance wasn't to help him troubleshoot the problem.

The short video had more than 5,000 comments and went viral on TikTok with thousands of likes. 

https://tinyurl.com/bdfds3ya

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/tesla-owner-stranded-supercharger-christmas-eve-after-cold-weather-paralyzes-battery

Huh...can't own one if you live in a hurricane or flooding area due to the batteries exploding and can't live in a cold climate...really makes one wonder how Europe is dealing with the issue?