In 2023, electric vehicles made up 7.6% of all new light duty vehicles sold in the U.S., but the federal government is clearly setting its sights much higher—and on a fast timetable. Several states, including California, New Jersey and Virginia, have issued mandates that all new vehicles sold beginning in 2035 are to be electric vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed vehicle emissions standards, set to be officially confirmed in March 2024, target a 60% market share for new battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) by the 2030 model year.
Discourse
Hey, I’m not opposed to EVs, someday I may buy one.
Our politicians can’t even fix Social Security, now they plan to have the full infrastructure in place and to make EVs the viable mode of transportation in only six to eleven years? Do they have a plan to acquire all the resources needed for batteries?
Global and domestic demand for lithium is only expected to increase as electric vehicles gradually displace those with fossil-fuel engines. Fortunately for US mining companies, the country’s land is filled with the white metal.
Yet the US is home to only one active lithium mine in the state of Nevada, manufacturing just 1% of global lithium production. Through legislation and executive authority, US President Joe Biden is courting domestic production of lithium to shift the country’s reliance away from foreign nations, most notably China.
While EV and mining companies have welcomed Biden’s efforts, not everyone is enthused. Lithium extraction can be an ecologically and culturally destructive process, and opposition by affected local communities to any type of mining appears to be growing in the US.
https://www.dw.com/en/us-has-huge-lithium-reserves-but-concerns-mount-over-mining/a-64103024
The US gets most of its lithium-ion batteries from China, and also sources large volumes from South Korea and Japan. So yeah, global relationships do matter.
I can just see the stop and go traffic heading to the Jersey shore on a Friday night in July and some guy has a dead battery or a few hundred are crowded at a service area vying for a charger.
I wonder what the plan is to replace the NJ Highway Fuels Revenue (for FY2024 estimated at $1.961 billion.) Of course, similar in other states.
We better hope the range of such vehicle reaches 500 miles or so and full charging takes five minutes.
We need to learn to walk before we charge ahead.
Full watts ahead
We need to head toward the EV era, but not on a political timetable.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
What!! The lefties in the administration have mandated that we all stop buying cars powered by fossil fuels by a date certain–that’s really shocking. Of course if Old Yeller is back sleeping at his desk at this time next year his buddies will be hell bent on more rules and regulations.
Have you been following the FAFSA situation where three years ago Congress mandated the Dept. of Ed to make the form simpler to complete (done!)–create more aide for low income students (done!)–but now the Dept of Ed. can’t process the forms because of “glitches”. It seems all the poor folks have no clue as to how much financial aid they are eligible for so have no idea what college to select from as acceptances/rejections are rolling in from these schools.
Assistant Dept. of Ed. lady was at a local school yesterday touting they would get more $ in the way of Pell grants but ducking questions about when the system will report to the college on the income stated on FAFSA forms. No income shown from FAFSA–no idea how much money from Feds–how much can they borrow–nobody knows.
Typical!! Nobody of course will be held accountable (like Boeing) as this is government work, Nobody gets fired!!
Of course the poor are hurt the most by these folks. Remember; “defund the police”?
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Several months ago – here in Chicago – we had a severe cold snap that only lasted a few days. Anyone knows here in the Midwest cold snaps can last weeks. EV batteries were dying – going to zero – overnight even after they had a charge the night before. Tow trucks were charging $200 to haul EV’s to a charging station. There were waits of several hours because of the cold and the number of folks needing a charge. And as a nation, where are we going to get all that electricity from?
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“Viking, a road assistance company (think AAA), says that it responded to 34,000 assistance requests in the first 9 days of the year. Viking says that only 13% of the cases were coming from electric vehicles (via TV2 — translated from Norwegian) [“13 percent of the cases with starting difficulties are electric cars, while the remaining 87 percent are fossil cars…”]To be fair, this data doesn’t adjust for the age of the vehicles. Older gas-powered cars fail at a higher rate than the new ones and electric vehicles are obviously much more recent on average.”
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If you spend 50 grand for an EV the damn thing should start in the winter!
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Butt…
A few simple unbiased web searches shows that ICE vehicles are MORE prone to frigid weather problems, MORE likely to catch fire, LESS energy efficient, and the original costs are coming down…
“The cost to make a new electric car could fall to the same level as gas-powered ones as soon as 2027 because of more efficient manufacturing, according to a March 7 report from the technology consulting firm Gartner.”
EVs are already less expensive to operate over the life of the vehicle, and more energy efficient.
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