Grrrr!

Here we go again. I’m about to have a rant so hold on.

Sales of EVs are declining for some reason. I think it’s all about uninformed negative information. There is a lot of it around and as EV owners we hear and see it a lot. Some of the information is accurate but twisted. For instance, there was an article in a German newspaper saying that EVs are environmentally negative because of the high cost of energy to produce one. This is true they do use more energy to build, but over the life of the vehicle they are not spewing out ten to fifteen years of pollution so are a lot more environmentally friendly. That was not mentioned! Also, how long does it take a gas vehicle to reach zero emissions?

We read one comment saying that it took 35 gallons of diesel at the charging station, to go 200 miles. If it did cost that much diesel, the cost to charge would go through the roof. Obviously not fact-checked. In Canada, we use hydro and nuclear power which is so much cleaner. In the USA it takes more to produce the energy because most of their power is fossil fuel generated; even so, that number is still out to lunch. Think about it, if diesel costs $1.50 or whatever, that means that it costs $52.50 to charge my car for 200 Miles when I only pay, at the most $15 at the charge station. No wonder oil companies are losing money, yeah right.

We hear that EV batteries are going to end up in landfills, that’s not so true anymore. Companies are starting to recycle as the metals used are too expensive to dump. The life of about ten years is short but it’s early in the EV era, technology is getting better, and batteries are lasting longer producing more range and costing less. The year we bought our car, 2023, the next year’s model of the same car came with more range.

They say that the infrastructure isn’t in place to support EVs. There are thousands of these charging stations out there and of course, there are teething problems but so far we have had no problems charging. We even found a free charger in a rest area on the highway. Our car is mostly charged at home but there are reports of people with EVs being unable to charge because they live in a condo and have no personal means of charging. Why didn’t they do a little research before they bought the vehicle? That was one of our first concerns, how and where do we charge and can we charge from home? It’s not rocket science to find out.

But my favourite negative story was on CBC News. It seems that a guy with a new Ford EV truck took a drive into the USA and ran out of power because he couldn’t find a charging station. The EV is like a computer and lets you know where the closest charge station is. He obviously didn’t do any research beforehand. The CBC reported this! If I went into the USA with a gas-powered vehicle and ran out of gas, would they report that? Not likely!

This is only the beginning I will rant more.