Open Thread April 5 2024 Guide to electric car misinformation

correct me if i am wrong

it takes twenty years of driving to have EV break even with gas power greenhouse gas emissions (that is, EV emission are higher that gas for 200,000 miles.

it will take “only” two years of driving for EV to break even with gas in future, or so they say.

question:  how many years if we drive less and slower in smaller car?    if we count only city driving?  do smaller, slower, shorter range EV;s need less exotic materials?

i like living in the country myself.  but i don’t have to drive into the city to work.  and all the people who want to live in the country and work in the city are turning the country into the city.  i can’t imagine that they get much value out of country living during the week,  maybe if they lived closer to work, they could drive out to the country on days they don’t have to be at work.

i know.  the city is not very pleasant, and there are all those poor people next door.

In other news …

Up to a Trillion Cicadas Are About to Emerge in the U.S.

NY Times – about an hour ago

In a rare occurrence, a trillion cicadas from two different broods are expected to begin appearing in the Midwest and Southeast regions of the United States at the end of April. …

… The bugs are beneficial to the environment, acting as natural tree gardeners. The holes they leave behind when they emerge from the ground help aerate the soil and allow for rainwater to get underground and nourish tree roots in hot summer months. The slits they make in trees can cause some branches to break, and the leaves then turn brown in a process known as “flagging,” which is a kind of natural pruning. When the branch grows again, the fruits it yields will tend to be larger. When they die, the cicadas’ rotting bodies provide nutrients that trees need. …

It’s the first time since 1803 that Brood XIX, or the Great Southern Brood, and Brood XIII, or the Northern Illinois Brood, will appear together in an event known as a dual emergence.

Thomas Jefferson was president the last time that the Northern Illinois Brood’s 17-year cycle aligned with the Great Southern Brood’s 13-year period. After this spring, it’ll be another 221 years before the groups, which are geographically adjacent, appear together again.

A roughly 16-state area will be center stage for these periodical cicadas, which differ from those that appear annually in smaller numbers. …

We’re at an inflection point in electric-car optimism. Over the past few years, as electric vehicle sales increased substantially and car companies announced an onslaught of new battery-powered models, it seemed that electric cars were a near-term inevitability. But for all the heady promise, E.V. enthusiasm seems to be cooling.

Ford recently announced that it’s cutting production targets for the Lightning, its electric truck. Brag-and-bluster Tesla projected that sales growth in 2024 would be “notably lower” than in recent years. Hertz is selling off about a third of its electric cars and Audi is slowing its transition to E.V.s. There are plenty of obvious headwinds for E.V.s — cost, range, and charging infrastructure (or lack thereof). But there’s also a more subtle issue at play, one that won’t be easily resolved: Electric cars are too boring.

I know this seems like a preposterous complaint, and I agree. On the list of things wrong with the world, “electric cars are dull” isn’t in the Top 5. I revel in being able to charge my plug-in hybrid Chrysler Pacifica with my solar panels, and believe that E.V.s are the answer to humanity’s long-term transportation needs. However, I also believe that the anesthetic experience of driving an electric car is a real hurdle to the technology’s widespread adoption, given that nearly every potential E.V. buyer grew up with the rich sensory experience of internal combustion. …

… Look, all I want is an E.V. that sounds like a mountain lion keening at your bedroom window, the way a Porsche 911 GT3 does at full throttle. The GT3 — and many of our favorite cars — could easily be made much quieter. But Porsche understands that sometimes, to make a car better, you’ve got to make it a little worse.

The electric future is clean, smooth and refined. But we might get there sooner if we can figure out how to rough it up a little bit.

Sometimes, to Make an Electric Car Better, You’ve Got to Make It a Little Worse

NY Times – April 8

Ezra Dyer – Car and Driver magazine.