Electric cars ‘twice as lethal for pedestrians as petrol or diesel’ – UK study

It seems electric cars just aren’t loud enough for public safety, compared to combustion-engined models. Predictably, EV drivers must expect later pedestrian reaction to their approach.
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Electric cars kill pedestrians at double the rate of petrol or diesel vehicles, a study in a BMJ journal has found.

Experts said that electric or hybrid cars were twice as likely to be involved in a road accident with a bystander than a petrol or diesel car over the same distance, reports The Telegraph.

The researchers suggested the vehicles’ quieter engines were a significant factor in higher fatality rates and called on the Government to mitigate the risks as it phases out petrol and diesel cars in pursuit of net zero.

Europe is revolting against the tyranny of electric cars

As Scotland makes an embarrassing climbdown on its much touted ‘net zero’ targets, widespread problems with the big EV push due to public resistance are highlighted. Bad news for climate worriers and the EV industry, a glimmer of hope for nearly everyone else.
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The rest of Europe, Remainers like to tell us, is forging ahead into a glorious green future while Brexit Britain is stalling, the government backsliding one by one on its net zero commitments, says Ross Clark @ The Telegraph.

It is hard to square that narrative with what’s really going on across the channel. In March, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, registrations of new electric vehicles plummeted by 11.3 per cent.

In Germany – the grown-up country that’s supposed to show childish Britain how it’s done – the drop was even more precipitous at 28.9 per cent.

The crews bracing themselves for a rise in electric car fires

Firefighter: “Our preferred approach is to let them burn themselves out”. EV fires ‘create a variety of toxic chemicals’. They ‘have to be “quarantined” away from other vehicles even after the fire appears to have been put out’, in case they re-ignite days or even 2-3 weeks later. Other types of car are still available, but in increasingly restricted numbers due to so-called climate policies.
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Each year, Essex Fire and Rescue Service focuses on one area of “top-up” training for its crews, says BBC News.

In recent years, this has included sessions on firefighting at height and managing hazardous materials.

This year, a new course is being introduced: How to deal with electric vehicle fires. Why?

Labour to ditch £28bn green prosperity plan – Sky News

Maybe the vast scale of anti-net zero protests around Europe has given them cold feet, plus the general lack of enthusiasm for such extravagant so-called climate policies among UK voters battling the fast-rising cost of living.
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Labour is ditching its policy of spending £28bn a year on its green investment plan, Sky News understands.

The policy will not be dropped altogether, but the party is ditching the financial target to spend £28bn a year on environmental schemes.

Labour will put this down to uncertain public finances and is also likely to say that this is the outcome of finalising ideas for their manifesto for the next general election, expected later this year.

Face It: The Energy Transition Ain’t Happening — Manhattan Contrarian

Wind power and EV sales stalling or in retreat, while coal, oil and gas advance. Things are not going according to the climate alarm script, despite assorted government interventions.
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If you are at all interested in matters of climate and energy, you have probably read hundreds of articles over the past few years about the inevitability of the coming energy transition, says the Manhattan Contrarian.

A piece of the claimed inevitability is that all good and decent people support this transition as a matter of moral urgency; but it’s not just that.

Nor is it just that government backs the transition with all its coercive powers, from subsidies to mandates to regulations. No, most importantly, the transition is said to have become inevitable due to unstoppable economic forces.

Trillions being wasted on climate emergency – reader’s letter to local paper

Commonsense from a citizen objecting to the vast sums being frittered away on futile and unachievable dogma-driven objectives in the name of somehow ‘correcting’ the global climate.
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With reference to your article Sit For Climate Protests At Station, I would like to point out an alternative view.

So begins a reader’s letter in the Newark Advertiser.
. . .
The reader concludes:
By focusing on C02 we are spending trillions on inefficient renewables and EV vehicles rather than using the money for real environmental issues and adapting to changing climatic conditions.

Source: Reader’s letter [pdf].

Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren’t working

Not the latest model

Is the niche EV market running out of niches to fill? Supposedly saving the climate, or whatever the latest slogan may be, looks like a dud selling point with the majority of private transport buyers now the novelty has worn off. Where that leaves the ‘net zero’ mandates of various governments, aimed at squeezing other vehicle types out of the marketplace altogether in the next decade or so, is an open question.
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With signs of growing inventory and slowing sales, auto industry executives admitted this week that their ambitious electric vehicle plans are in jeopardy, at least in the near term, says Climate Depot.

Several C-Suite leaders at some of the biggest carmakers voiced fresh unease about the electric car market’s growth as concerns over the viability of these vehicles put their multi-billion-dollar electrification strategies at risk.

Among those hand-wringing is GM’s Mary Barra, historically one of the automotive industry’s most bullish CEOs on the future of electric vehicles.

GM has been an early-mover in the electric car market, selling the Chevrolet Bolt for seven years and making bold claims about a fully electric future for the company long before its competitors got on board.

But this week on GM’s third-quarter earnings call, Barra and GM struck a more sober tone. The company announced with its quarterly results that it’s abandoning its targets to build 100,000 EVs in the second half of this year and another 400,000 by the first six months of 2024. GM doesn’t know when it will hit those targets.

“As we get further into the transformation to EV, it’s a bit bumpy,” she said.

While GM’s about-face was somewhat of a surprise to investors, the Detroit car company is not alone in this new view of the EV future. Even Tesla’s Elon Musk warned on a recent earnings call that economic concerns would lead to waning vehicle demand, even for the long-time EV market leader.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz — which is having to discount its EVs by several thousand dollars just to get them in customers’ hands — isn’t mincing words about the state of the EV market.

“This is a pretty brutal space,” CFO Harald Wilhelm said on an analyst call. “I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody.”

EVs are getting harder to sell

But Mercedes isn’t the only one; almost all current EV product is going for under sticker price these days, and on top of that, some EVs are seeing manufacturer’s incentives of nearly 10%.

That’s as inventory builds up at dealerships, much to the chagrin of dealers. While car buyers are in luck if they’re looking for a deal on a plug-in vehicle, executives are finding even significant markdowns and discounts aren’t enough.

These cars are taking dealers longer to sell compared with their gas counterparts as the next wave of buyers focus on cost, infrastructure challenges, and lifestyle barriers to adopting.

Full article here.

Electric cars risk becoming uninsurable

BMW i3 electric car plus battery pack [image credit: carmagazine.co.uk]

Over-sensitive and unpredictable lithium-based batteries continue to be a headache, for various reasons. Is the EV industry really ready for prime time, as government ‘net zero’ mandates take hold?
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Electric cars risk becoming effectively uninsurable as analysts struggle to put a price on battery repairs, the researcher for the car insurance industry has said. — The Telegraph reporting.

Jonathan Hewett, chief executive of Thatcham Research, the motor insurers’ automotive research centre, said a lack of “insight and understanding” about the cost of repairing damaged electric car batteries was pushing up premiums and resulting in some providers declining to provide cover altogether.

Electric cars can be particularly expensive to repair, costing around a quarter more to fix on average than a petrol or diesel vehicle.

Experts have previously warned electric vehicles are being written off after minor bumps because of the cost and complexity of fixing their batteries.

Motorway service stations hiring staff to police surging levels of EV ‘charge rage’

Image credit: motorwayservices.uk

Net zero chaos: the UK grid just can’t meet current(!) EV requirements at busy travel times. Good luck if such a time happens to be a windless day. Electricity can’t easily be stored at the service station, like liquid fuels – who knew?
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Britain’s biggest motorway service station provider has brought in marshals to police “charge rage” among electric vehicle drivers battling for access to plug-in points, reports The Telegraph.

Moto chief executive Ken McMeikan warned the UK’s motorway service stations are facing growing “public disorder” due to a lack of grid connections preventing him from installing enough car chargers to meet the surge in demand.

It means many motorists are facing long waits, with angry drivers confronting staff and each other over the lack of charging facilities.

Volkswagen cuts jobs as demand for EVs plunges

VW ID.3 [image credit: Alexander Migl @ Wikipedia]

Subsidies, wealthy buyers and niche markets only get EV makers so far, it seems. The old problems are still there – initial cost, range anxiety, slow charging, battery life etc. Moaning about humans supposedly having adverse effects on the weather turns out to be a weak selling point for the mass market.
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Volkswagen is cutting almost 300 roles at a factory in Germany as demand for electric cars dwindles, reports The Telegraph.

The redundancies are being carried out at the car giant’s plant in Zwickau, where a further 2,000 temporary workers are also at risk of losing their jobs.

Volkswagen’s Zwickau factory only produces electric vehicles, which have fallen in popularity due to high inflation and faltering government support. [Talkshop comment – is that crutch expected to go on forever?]

Road to nowhere: San Francisco driverless cars cause street blockage chaos ‘due to nearby music festival’

Image credit: Chris Wensel / BBC

H/T LBC’s World of Woke

This wasn’t an isolated incident. The city’s fire department is not amused by errant no-go electric cars: ‘not ready for prime time’.
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A controversial driverless car firm was blasted after around 10 of its autonomous vehicles broke down and blocked a San Francisco street, reports the Daily Mail.

Just a day after securing the green light to flood the streets of the crime-ridden city with even more of its Chevy Bolts, ten of Cruise’s cars suffered WiFi failures which brought a street in the North Beach district to a stand-still.

The firm thinks a nearby music festival may have overloaded telecommunications networks.

A woman who filmed the drama could be heard claiming 10 of the hatchbacks had stopped.

Don’t listen to the Climate Change Committee on car bans, ministers are warned

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Some light reading for the Climate Change Committee — Why Electric Cars Are An Expensive Scam.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

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Pothole damage from electric cars is double that of petrol, Telegraph data show

Electric SUV [image credit: electrichunter.com]

Britain’s residential roads are not designed to cope with large numbers of such heavy vehicles. But they’re coming anyway.
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Electric cars damage roads twice as much as their petrol equivalents, analysis has shown, as the pothole crisis grows on Britain’s roads, says the Daily Telegraph.

Analysis by The Telegraph has found that the average electric car more than doubles the wear on road surfaces, which in turn could increase the number of potholes.

The country is suffering from a pothole crisis, with half as many filled last year compared to a decade ago amid an estimated £12 billion price tag to fill them all.

Deep-sea mining controversy: hotspot teems with mystery animals

Seabed mining

There’s already friction between some of the big car firms and the mining concerns, with the car people backing a moratorium but the miners insisting they wouldn’t be able to produce enough for the EV markets without exploiting the sea bed.
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A vast stretch of ocean floor earmarked for deep sea mining is home to thousands of oddball sea creatures, most of them unknown to science, says BBC News.

They include weird worms, brightly coloured sea cucumbers and corals.

Scientists have put together the first full stocktake of species to help weigh up the risks to biodiversity.

They say more than 5,000 different animals have been found in the Clarion Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean.

The area is a prime contender for the mining of precious metals from the sea bed, which could begin as early as this year.

Death Of The EV Dream, Er, Nightmare

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American fuels vs. Chinese batteries. Place bets now!

PA Pundits International

By Duggan Flanakin ~

Now that the American Dream has been turned into a nightmare in part by overspending that has led to the highest interest rates in the 21^st Century, it is high time to admit that, as Melanie Mcdonagh writes in The Telegraph, the electric vehicle dream, too, “has turned into a nightmare.”

Mcdonagh, who admits she does not drive, points out many problems, among them the horrific impact when a heavy, quiet-running electric vehicle hits an unsuspecting pedestrian or a cyclist. She also notes that some of these “vehicles” are collecting data on route history and road speed that governments (and corporations) can use for remote surveillance (and marketing gimmickry). Another problem is that the much heavier EVs could collapse bridges and force lengthy detours.

Mcdonagh, however, has barely scratched the surface of the mess created by the hipster culture that believes everything sacred…

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Sheer weight of electric vehicles could sink our bridges

One estimate reckons 1 in every 20 UK bridges is ‘substandard’. Road surfaces and tyre wear must also be affected. More unintended consequences of climate obsessions and so-called green policies.
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Councils should check the weight limits on bridges to ensure they don’t collapse with heavier electric cars travelling across them, ministers have suggested.

The news comes after concerns were raised that multi-storey car parks might collapse if too many electric vehicles (EVs), which can weigh as much as 33 per cent more than traditional petrol cars, are parked on them, says The Telegraph.

Tory MP Greg Knight asked in the Commons whether Transport Secretary Mark Harper or other Cabinet colleagues might assess the “adequacy of the strength of multi-storey car parks and bridges at safely bearing the additional weight of electric vehicles”.

Fast electric car charger designed in France can send power to grid

Credit: Renault

H/T Tallbloke

Where do we start with the issues this raises? Availability of the car for use by the owner/driver is an obvious one, fire hazards another. Inadequacy and weather-dependency of the future electricity grid is implied.
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A revolutionary charger for electric car batteries has been designed by Renault, which claims it is 30% more efficient than existing ones and allows energy to be put back into the grid at peak demand times, says Connexion France.

The bi-directional charger will be introduced to the company’s electric vehicles over the next decade, with the new electric R5 probably being the first model to be fitted with it.

Electric Cars: Square Peg, Round Hole

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Who wants to pay a lot more for a less useful product that loses its value much faster than what it’s supposed to be replacing – in order to achieve what?

PA Pundits International

By Duggan Flanakin ~

The big story of 2023 just might be the clash between those who have imposed electric vehicle mandates and those for whom an electric vehicle is not on their shopping list.

The federal government, many state governments, and much of the automobile industry – and their counterparts worldwide – have decreed that the world abandon the internal combustion engine in favor of the (often-coal-fired) electric vehicle.

Mandates for banning new sales of conventional vehicles are as plentiful as schemes to disallow further production of “evil” fossil fuels that brought a total transformation of the world economy in little more than a century. Moreover, most automakers have pledged to end production of conventional vehicles within the next few years.

While sales of EVs “boomed” last year, the 6 million EVs still comprise less than half a percent of the world’s 1.4 billion vehicles. Yet Bloomberg…

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Britishvolt: UK battery start-up collapses in blow to ‘net zero’ policy

This calls into question the whole economics of the UK’s climate-obsessive push for a ‘net zero’ economy. A general lack of enthusiasm for such a project is apparent, maybe due to weak EV sales. Where was the cash supposed to come from?
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UK battery start-up Britishvolt has collapsed into administration, with the majority of its 300 staff made redundant with immediate effect, reports BBC News.

Employees were told the news at an all-staff meeting on Tuesday morning.

The firm had planned to build a giant factory to make electric car batteries in Northumberland and was part of a long-term vision to boost UK manufacturing.

But its board is believed to have decided on Monday that there were no viable bids to keep the company afloat.

Italy’s Transport Minister Asks EU To Stop ICE Vehicle Ban

Political climate obsession has gone way too far with EV ‘mandates’, as the Italian minister implies. Today’s EVs are too expensive and impractical to be a suitable future for private transport.
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Italy’s Transport Minister Matteo Salvini has asked the EU Commission’s Transport Commissioner and his French and German counterparts to review the ban on ICE vehicle sales that is set to go into effect in 2035, reports OilPrice.com.

Salvini told Italian news outlet Ultimore that the proposed ban on the sale of fossil fuel-burning vehicles “makes no economic, environmental or social sense.”

Salvini’s stance on the ICE vehicle sales ban echoes that of carmakers and the European car industry association, ACEA, in the summer of 2021.