Gas vs EV cars: honest cost shocks

#2095

Imagine two cars
driving down a broad highway side-by-side.
One is gas powered and the other electrical.

Most people imagine that the electrical
Is cheaper, more efficient, even zero emissions .

Let's extend the image
To include time.
The gas car can be seen
As hooked up to a gas pump
Which needs to be manufactured
Add placed on rented or purchased land
Hooked up to a gas delivery truck
Which is hooked up to a refinery
Which is connected to a pumping station.

These are all costs that must be included.
The electric car is simpler, Thus no emissions
At the moment.

But if we extend our image to include time
The EV is hooked up to
An electric charging station
Which needs to be manufactured
Delivered and installed.
Some portion of the driver’s food and housing
Should be apportioned to the cost of the car.

Now the larger picture comes to mind
The charging station is hooked to a copper wire
Running from some kind of distribution center
Hooked up to a grid
That is installed on land
That must be paid for.
And the grid is hooked up to a power station
To generate the electricity
That will be delivered to the car

That generating station
Likely into the future
Will burn coal or oil.

All components of the Power Station
Must be manufactured
And< If we are honest, apportioned
To that EV
Driving down the highway.

In fact the technical and social infrastructure
Needed for that EV is increasingly complicated
And costly.

It probably turns out that the EV
Is quite a bit more expensive
Than the gas-powered car.

see

Mark Mills: The energy transition delusion: inescapable mineral realities