One of the many problems with electric cars is that places to “refuel” them are neither convenient nor common. You can plug in at home, but that’s slow (it takes hours to resurrect a wilted battery this way) and it means you are at home. Not somewhere else. A car is supposed to take you to other places – not be umbilically tied to an outlet in your garage.
There are “fast” chargers (the rent-seeking King of Crony Capitalism, Elon Musk, calls them “Superchargers”) that can partially juice up a battery in just six or seven times the time it takes to fill up a normal IC-engined car’s gas tank (30-45 minutes vs. less than 5 minutes) but these are mostly hypothetical because very expensive and so, few and far between.
If there were money in it, some entrepreneur would erect Fast Chargers all over the country. This happens routinely with gas stations, which earn their proprietors money. Hence the incentive to build the station.
But electric recharging stations? There’s no money in them.
Physical Gold & Silver in your IRA. Get the Facts.
Which is why government builds them. With your money and mine, taken not freely.
The Obama Regime (they are all regimes, being a minority cabal of authoritarians who rule with – at best – the actual support of a small percentage of the populace; the rest being dragged along contrary to their will) last week decreed that it will funnel extorted taxpayer dollars to pay for a grid of electric vehicle charging stations on 25,000 miles of highways in 35 states.
Befehlshaber (order giver) Obama has decreed that “1 million” electric cars must be on the road by 2015.
Whoops, it’s almost 2017 and that “goal” (his word) hasn’t been reached. A fraction of it has – even with massive federal and state “incentives” amounting to billions of dollars, also not taken freely.
So now, more billions must be devoted to charging stations for electric Turduckens like the Tesla – the fire-prone/crash-prone $70,000 (to start) crony capitalist conveyance purveyed by Musk – and other such like the $36,000 Chevy Bolt (successor to the very badly failed Spark EV).
Der Fuhrer befehle:
By working together across the Federal government and with the private sector, we can ensure that electric vehicle drivers have access to charging stations at home, at work, and on the road – creating a new way of thinking about transportation that will drive America forward. Today’s announcements demonstrate a continued partnership between the Administration, states, localities, and the private sector to achieve these shared goals…
Note the italics. “Working together”? Can any of us decline? Or is there a bayonet prodding our backsides? “Shared goals.” Really?
I don’t recall… .
Never mind.
Atlanta will install 300 EV charging stations by the end of next year. LA will add another 500 (and – hilariously – will replace 200 IC-engined cop cars with electric units; a small but nonetheless bit of good news for us as it will now be easier to get away from the armed government workers).
And of course, the car companies – which spoon with Uncle – have bought in. Literally. Like Musk, they know there is more money to be taken (as opposed to honestly earned) by “partnering” with Uncle than by offering products and services people are free to buy on the merits… but which they are also free to not buy, if they lack merit. As decided by those who choose to buy – or not buy.
Of course, it’s easier when you have a captive market. Literally captive.
