Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Tag Archives: charging stations

The Problems With Electric Vehicles Are Becoming Obvious

Posted on by

WITN posted an article on Wednesday about the impact of the current cold snap on electric cars.

The article reports:

OAK BROOK, Ill. (WLS) – Tesla drivers in the Chicago-area are complaining about charging stations not working due to the extreme cold, leaving them with dead batteries.

Many Tesla owners were stranded Monday with dead batteries from the cold and not enough working charging stations at a location in Evergreen Park, Illinois. For most of the day, the temperatures were expected to be below zero with wind chills from -25 to -35 degrees.

“Our batteries are so cold it’s taking longer to charge now. So, it should take 45 minutes, [but] it’s taking two hours for the one charger that we have,” said Tesla owner Brandon Welbourne. “I have seen at least 10 cars get towed away from here because the cars, they died, they’ve run out of battery.”

In nearby Oak Brook, some drivers who went looking for a charge waited hours.

“Right from outside the highway, there’s a whole line of cars, over 20 cars, all Tesla cars … and every single car is a Tesla in this whole parking lot,” said Tesla driver Sajid Ahmed. “We’re waiting and waiting for over an hour. It’s unfortunate that these cars are sitting dead in the spots.”

For many drivers, it was too late. Their cars died during the long wait, and they had to leave their vehicles stranded and wait for the stations to get up and running again.

We should also note that charging an electric vehicle is not the five minute process that filling up your gas tank is–in cold or hot weather. Green energy is a nice theory. However, until we perfect it, we really shouldn’t encourage drivers in parts of the country where the weather is extremely cold to invest in electric cars.

For Those Of Us Who Dream Of Owning A Tesla…

Posted on by

On Monday, The Federalist posted an article about a husband and wife who rented a Tesla for a week-long trip.

The article reports:

While planning a week-long trip to the Seattle area recently, I wondered aloud to my husband if we should rent a Tesla. Neither of us had ever driven an electric vehicle before. The price difference between the long-range Tesla Model 3 and a standard mid-size gas-fueled vehicle was pretty negligible.

We agreed it would be an interesting learning experience despite our objections to the eco-agenda to phase out gas-powered vehicles. We also don’t believe EVs are particularly environmentally friendly since they need batteries that require the strip-mining of rare earth minerals such as lithium and cobalt. The World Economic Forum knows this very well and is likely looking for heavy limits on EV mobility after eliminating gas-powered vehicles.

The article notes:

…we will never buy a Tesla or any EV as long as we have the option of gas-powered vehicles or even hybrids. Read on for seven big reasons why. (Yes, “mileage may vary.”)

1. Battery Drainage Is Stress-Inducing

2. Few Charging Station Locations and Length of Time There

3. Personal Safety at Charging Locations Can Feel Dicey

4. Texting While Driving Is Required

5. No Convenient Manual to Consult While Renting

6. How to Lock the Car?

7. Don’t Expect the Cost of a Battery Charge to Always Be Lower than Gasoline

The article concludes:

But pigs will fly before I buy an EV based on my Tesla experience/experiment. This conclusion is not based on a one-hour test drive but on an entire week of driving in an EV-friendly part of the country.

Granted, there are some moments of fun when driving a Tesla. “Regenerative braking” is a system that recharges the battery. So once your foot is off the accelerator, the car slows down quickly. We rarely needed to use the brake at all, even at red lights. And once you accelerate, expect a fast pick-up! The tinted glass roof was kind of cool. The seats were comfortable enough. But all in all, it was too much hassle and too much anxiety. I’m now totally sold on gas-powered vehicles.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. It seems as if the science has not caught up to the dream.

Hypocrisy At Its Best

Posted on by

Zero Hedge posted the following headline today:

UN Climate Change Conference Reportedly Using Diesel Generators To Charge Teslas Being Used As Shuttles

The article reports:

As many people know, the Conference of the Parties (COP) Climate Change Conference, hosted by the UK in partnership with Italy, is taking place in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

One blogger from Brighton wrote this week that attendees from the conference will be staying at Gleneagles Hotel.

He wrote that there’s 20 Teslas at the hotel to shuttle people back and forth to and from the convention, which is about 75km. 

Then, the kicker. Since the hotel only has one Tesla charging station, diesel generators were contracted to help recharge the Teslas overnight. 

The stated purpose of the conference is, among other things, “to review the implementation of the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.”

The climate change conferences now count themselves, according to the UNFCCC’s website, as “among the largest international meetings in the world.”

“The intergovernmental negotiations have likewise become increasingly complex and involve an ever-increasing number of officials from governments all over the world, at all levels, as well as huge numbers of representatives from civil society and the global news media,” the conference’s website says.

Maybe since we’re gathered to talk about the negative effect on the climate, we could at least start by finding a carbon neutral way to shuttle yourself back and forth to the event.

Another illustration of an idea that sounds good but needs a lot of work to be put into practice. Also an illustration of poor planning on the part of those who planned the conference.