Ford

RPT Offers Ford CEO Jim Farley Some More “Reality Checks”

Published by Papa Giorgio

As an aside, this/these critiques are not meant to be “Ford specific,” rather, ALL EV SPECIFIC. Ford’s CEO’s truthful admission while ignoring other TROOTHZ is the point ALL CEO’s should take note of.

  • Ford CEO Jim Farley said he faced a “reality check” while attempting to charge his electric truck during a road trip across the American West, an admission that comes as President Joe Biden spends billions to spur electric vehicle adoption.
  • Farley embarked on the trip in Ford’s new electric F-150 Lightning last week in an attempt to “see the EV transition in action.” He started in Silicon Valley, made a stop in Los Angeles, and then ended in Las Vegas. Farley documented much of the trip on social media, including his late-night charging sessions and the “challenging” nature of obtaining enough power to travel long distances.
  • “Charging has been pretty challenging,” Farley said, adding that at one stop it took him 40 minutes to charge his truck’s battery to just 40 percent. “It was a really good reality check—the challenges of what our customers go through.” (OFF THE PRESS BULLET POINTS)

‘Reality Check’: Ford CEO Struggles to Charge EV During Road Trip (WASHINGTON FREE BEACON):

Earlier this year, the Biden administration unveiled a new rule to limit tailpipe emissions, which is aimed at ensuring two-thirds of new vehicles are electric by 2032. That benchmark far exceeded Biden’s 2021 executive order pushing for half of all vehicles sold by 2030 to be zero-emission. Still, getting drivers to hop on board with the EV transition has been difficult. Last year, just 6 percent of vehicles sold were electric.

RPT Offers Ford CEO Jim Farley Some More “Reality Checks”

Check One:

State Sized Chunks of Land To Go Green

To give you a sense of scale, to replace the energy from one average natural gas well, which sits on about four acres of land, would require 2,500 acres of wind turbines. That is a massive amount of land. You would have to cover this entire nation with wind turbines in an attempt to replace the electricity that we generate from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, and even that would not get the job done.

[….]

Achieving Biden’s goal will require aggressively building more wind and solar farms, in many cases combined with giant batteries. To fulfill his vision of an emission-free grid by 2035, the U.S. needs to increase its carbon-free capacity by at least 150%. Expanding wind and solar by 10% annually until 2030 would require a chunk of land equal to the state of South Dakota, according to Princeton University estimates and an analysis by Bloomberg News. By 2050, when Biden wants the entire economy to be carbon free, the U.S. would need up to four additional South Dakotas to develop enough clean power to run all the electric vehicles, factories and more.

(RELIGIO-POLITICAL TALK)

Check Two:

Google Admits Infrastructure Impossibilities

We came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

[….]

“Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.”

(RELIGIO-POLITICAL TALK)

Check Three:

Added Weight (Parking Garages/Fatality Risks)

  • For example, the 2023 GMC Hummer EV, a full-size pickup, weighs more than 9,000 pounds, sporting a 2,900-pound battery. In comparison, the 2023 GMC Sierra, also a full-size pickup, weighs less than 6,000 pounds, according to Kelley Blue Book.
  • The average weight of U.S. vehicles has already increased from about 3,400 pounds to 4,300 pounds over the last 30 years as Americans have ditched passenger cars for pickups and SUVs, according to Evercore ISI analysts.

Threat level: Safety watchdogs are raising concerns after the recent deadly collapse of a parking garage in New York City called attention to the challenge of creaking infrastructure.

  • Traffic safety is particularly concerning. In crashes, the “baseline fatality probability” increases 47% for every 1,000 additional pounds in the vehicle — and the fatality risk is even higher if the striking vehicle is a light truck (SUV, pickup truck, or minivan), according to a 2011 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
  • “Since we’re seeing pedestrian and roadway fatalities at record levels, the introduction of more weight into crashes via EVs will complicate any attempts to reduce the ongoing fatality crisis that has showed no signs of abating,” Center for Auto Safety acting executive director Michael Brooks tells Axios in an email.

(RELIGIO-POLITICAL TALK | RELIGIO-POLITICAL TALK)

Check Four:

Slave Labor and Resource Materials

The Disturbing Reality of Cobalt Mining for Rechargeable Batteries

….Regarding the demand for the different minerals, in the case of aluminum, according to our results, the demand for minerals from the rest of the economy would stand out, with the requirement for batteries having little influence. Copper would have a high demand from the rest of the economy, but it would also have a significant demand from vehicles, infrastructure and batteries. Cobalt would be in high demand because of the manufacture of batteries with the exception of the LFP battery that does not have this mineral, in the case of its demand from the rest of the economy it can be stated that it would be important but less influential than the demand for batteries. Lithium would have very high requirements from all the batteries and with a reduced demand from the rest of the economy. Manganese would have an important but contained demand coming from LMO and NMC batteries, since the requirements for this mineral would stand out in the rest of the economy. Finally, nickel would have a high demand from NMC and NCA batteries, but its main demand would come from the rest of the economy.

The batteries that would require the least materials are the NCA and LFP batteries. The NMC battery has been surpassed in performance and mineral usage by the NCA. The LiMnO2 battery has a very poor performance, so it has been doomed to disuse in electric vehicles. In addition, the LFP battery, the only one that does not use critical materials in the cathode (other than lithium), also has poor performance, requiring very large batteries (in size and weight) to match the capacity and power of batteries using cobalt.

Charging infrastructure, rail and copper used in electrified vehicles could add up to more than 17% of the copper reserve requirement in the most unfavourable scenario (high EV) and 7% in the most favourable (degrowth), so these are elements that must be taken into account…..

(RELIGIO-POLITICAL TALK | RELIGIO-POLITICAL TALK)

Check Five:

Materials for One EV Battery:

  • You Dig Up 500,000 Pounds of the Earth’s Crust for One EV Auto Battery! And each of these half a million pounds of earth are dug up with a diesel engine. A typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells. To manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for one battery.” (NATIONAL REVIEW – AUSTRALIA)

Check Six:

China’s “Red Barchetta”

Check Seven:

ECON 101

[….]

On a more serious note, yes, pushing technology that does not work well at all in replacing fossil fuels as sound (solar, wind, current battery tech, etc.) through subsidies and edict… yes, THAT is the issue. This video highlights [encapsulates] the result of government largess IN THAT people have a false impression these vehicles are just as good and would in a free and open market fail. Europe is moving to make natural gas and nuclear “green,” because (a) they are, and (b) they work. The U.S. has the most corrupt and politicians that vote legislation based on a Utopian ideal (say, a Bernie Sanders, AOC, etc.) or personal enrichment (say McConnell or Pelosi, etc.). Reality bites and refuses to let go… even Newsom extended Diablo Canyon nuclear plant life instead of shutting it down. Why? because it works, wind and solar wanes at best…

It is an impossible goal, but many miss out on inculcating that fact into their thinking. Thomas Sowell notes the biggest difference between “conservatives” and “the Left” are these simple and basic questions:

1) compared to what?
2) at what cost?
3) what hard-evidence do you have?

Which even if someone were to read just my “BATTERY” section of my EV Post, they will encounter thinking unheard of in their normal diet of “clean energy” thinking. “At What Cost”

So, the “short answer” to my fellow compatriot on a similar life journey is, that that video shows the failure of what a large government “buying widgets” can do:

  • “A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge” — George Gilder

Via an Interview by Dennis Prager [EDITOR’S NOTE: this is how the USSR ended up with warehouses FULL of “widgets” no one needed in the real world (things made that it could not use, or people did not want based on what a politician or leader in a controlled environment “thought” people would need). This economic law enforcers George Gilder’s contention that when government supports a venture from failing, no information is gained in knowing if the program works. Only the free-market can do this: I-PENCIL]

(RELIGIO-POLITICAL TALK)

Smaller or Larger Government? Equality or Prosperity?

Published by Papa Giorgio

For context:

The following comes from a discussion elsewhere on the Web, and should serve as a great reminder to the deleterious effects of larger (more regulatory) government vs. a smaller form of it:

The main point is that one party has people in it that are for small government — people like Ron Paul, Larry Elder, and the late Milton Friedman (a libertarian “god” of sorts). In the other you have people who want to grow government larger, and larger, and larger. California is a microcosm of the effect this has on businesses and regulating people’s lives. However, this drive to regulate people and their lives and to grow government, has, in every case, increased the possibility of government intrusion by force into the lives of ordinary people, which increase the risk (again, this is provable in history) of detention and death.

Which is why most libertarians vote Republican, they want smaller government. A great example is the housing market crisis. Some people are under the impression this was caused due to an easing of regulation. Not true. In fact, it was government-regulating banks to loan to people it would previously not. Why is this? Because the left wants [material] equality, the right wants people to prosper. One offers the most freedom, the other forces one person to pay for another. Here is an a small sampling of 2012 regulations from California that is helping businesses make the choice in moving to other states:

============

✦In addition to mandatory insurance coverage, eligible female employees can take four months pregnancy disability leave, under provisions of SB 299.
✦The independent contractor law, SB 459, is worth discussing with a legal or h/r expert, because the rules are so tough and potentially expensive. That $5,000 to $25,000 fine is PER INCIDENT.
✦Employees can take up to 30 business days in a year for donating organs or bone marrow. SB 272 clarifies the law a bit.
✦Company dress codes must accommodate transvestites and cross dressers under AB 887.
✦Companies operating in multiple states must offer the same insurance coverage for same-sec couples and domestic partners as they do married couples in California.
✦Five new laws change workers compensation insurance. Check with your insurance carrier.

(Orange County Register)

==============

Everything the growth in government touches (which is typically from the left… or, the right embracing the foundational thinking of the left [like Bush working with Kennedy to increase the size and focus of the Dept of Education]). This regulation causes friction between government and regular people. As more and more regulations are added, the increase in the possibility of armed persons coming to your door increases — like this example of natural foods markets being raided: http://biggovernment.com/reasontv/2011/08/04/reason-tv-rawesome-foods-raided-again/

So persons that *REALLY* want to effect the political spectrum and possibly decrease the size of the government the most would want to vote Republican (like Milton Friedman, Larry Elder, and Rand Paul [Ron Paul’s son]). And this decreases the abrasive aspect of government and the regular Joe meeting. Congress — for instance – should meet for 3-months during the year, and do less of this:

“Federal agencies publish an average of over 200 pages of new rulings, regulations, and proposals in the Federal Register each business day. That growth of the federal statute book is one of the clearest measures of the increase of the government control of the citizenry…” James Bovard, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martins Griffen; 1994), 1.

“All forms of the liberal agenda interfere with the rational relationship between human action and the conditions of life by disconnecting outcomes from adaptive behavior. Government welfare programs of all kinds disconnect the receipt of material benefits from productive behavior and voluntary exchange, and from those normal developmental processes that lead to adult competence. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other federal and state welfare programs divorce an individual’s material security and emotional well being from his economic and social connections to his community, and replace them with a marriage to government officials. In particular, welfare programs disconnect the individual’s security and well being from two of his most reliable resources: his own initiative in producing and exchanging with others, and his social bonds to members of his family, church, neighborhood or village. The liberal agenda’s takeover of countless individual and community functions, from early education to care of the elderly, has had the effect of alienating the individual from his community and robbing both of their essential mutuality. In the economic sphere, especially, the liberal agenda’s rules have become strikingly irrational. Countless restrictions dictate what the ordinary businessman and professional may or may not do regarding hiring procedures, sales and purchasing, health insurance plans, retirement plans, safety precautions, transportation policies, racial and ethnic quotas, immigration matters, liability rules, and provisions for the handicapped. Endless paperwork adds to the already crushing burden of confiscatory taxation. Licensure requirements needlessly prevent workers from entering new fields in which they are willing to work hard and risk much in order to make life better for themselves and their families. Unnecessary and unjust restrictions in the freedom with which individuals can run their economic lives are the hallmarks of the liberal agenda. But the social pathology of collectivism extends well beyond the economic realm. While children can be happy in dependent relationships with parents, adults cannot be happy in any mature sense in dependent relationships with government welfare programs, no matter how well intentioned or administered. The reasons for this are developed more thoroughly below and occupy a major portion of this book. Stated briefly, however, the large-scale dependency of the adult citizen on governments is always inherently pathological and always profoundly detrimental to…” Lyle H. Rossiter, The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness, p. 71.

Cal Watchdog adds to the idea with the most recent businesses leaving:

Waste Connections, a Folsom-based garbage hauling and landfill company, said last week it is busting a move for Texas. Santa Barbara-based Superconductor Technologies Inc., which develops advanced superconducting wire, also confirmed this week it is leaving for the Lone Star State.

After California’s ongoing budget imbroglio, there is arguably no greater crisis facing our once Golden State than the continuing exodus of homegrown companies like Waste Connections and Superconductor Technologies. Yet, lawmakers in Sacramento are doing next to nothing about it.

In fact, Waste Connections CEO Ron Mittlestaedt actually warned state officials back in August that his company was thinking about relocating to another state. Those officials failed to step up and dissuade the Sacramento region’s largest publicly traded company from leaving.
Higher Taxes

Mittlestaedt echoed the lament of all too many California CEO’s that the state is inhospitable for business. It “has the highest tax rates in the nation,” he told the Sacramento Bee this week, “and they’re going higher.” And California is not only fiscally broke, he said, but also “structurally.”

By that, he was referring to the state’s hostile regulatory environment. As when the Legislature this year neglected to pass a measure that would have made it easier for Waste Connections and other landfill operators to move trash around the state, while doing no harm to the environment.

Superconductor Technologies CEO Jeff Quiram said in a statement that the company’s goal of becoming “a leader in the superconducting wire industry recently reached the inflection point where it was time to make a move.”

Translation: The cost, the hassle of doing business in California has risen to such a level that aspiring companies like STI cannot grow their businesses the way they can in competing states….

…read more…

Other posts referencing these issue worth checking out: