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August 10, 2023

The following essay is satire, but the Biden administration’s push for the creation of an Electric Combat Vehicle and the requirement for handicapped spaces at each charging station (wherever they may be) are real.

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With the desire of the Biden Administration to push the military into using renewable energy and electric vehicles wherever possible, field testing of the Army’s new Electric Combat Vehicle (ECV) began in May of 2024. The first six, each costing $227,000, were built on the chassis of the Ford F-150 Lightning battery-powered pickup truck. They were delivered to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland for testing.

Hard bumps on test tracks ruptured two of the batteries. Within seconds the electrolytic fluid in them erupted into flames that the fire department was unable to extinguish.

After that testing, Army Public Affairs issued a glowing press release about how well the four surviving ECVs had performed while not mentioning the two charred hulks that had to be dealt with by Hazmat crews.

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In July, ECV testing moved to Fort Irwin, California, to see how they performed in intense desert heat. Four new ECVs were added to the fleet. Within hours of being driven off-road in the trackless desert, they began to experience a high rate of tire failures that slowed their travel.

Those high temperatures also sharply increased the pressure in the batteries until one battery casing ruptured, and all the test team could do was stand back and watch the unquenchable flames turn it into a charred wreck.

Image: Electric trucks in flames at a Ford plant. YouTube screen grab.

In compliance with Biden’s rules, a pair of million-dollar EV charging stations had been built. It didn’t matter that they were 27 miles from the nearest paved road. They were powered by a full acre of solar panels installed on the habitat of the protected desert tortoise.

In compliance with the strict Biden rules, the charging stations included asphalt-paved and blue-striped handicap-only parking spaces in front of the chargers. When the test team arrived, they found that the intense heat of the sun had turned the asphalt into a sticky, molten goo.

More than that, the charging cables were too short to reach each vehicle’s charging port without parking in the handicapped slot, so the test director told his team to park there anyway. They shoveled dirt onto the asphalt goo so the drivers could get in and out without getting their shoes or vehicle stuck.

Once connected, they discovered that the solar panels couldn’t charge both vehicles at the same time in the required 90 minutes. To survive the ambient heat during the recharging period, the test team retreated to the air-conditioning in their petroleum-powered rides.