It seems that we discover more reasons every week why electric cars are not the panacea that the left claims, and this week EVs were revealed as being less environmentally friendly and more costly in yet another way.
Electric vehicles are far more problematic than the happy talk we constantly hear about them from greenies and government policy wonks, certainly. And now we have one more black mark against their efficacy with a report by the U.K. Telegraph that finds that EVs present a serious challenge for road maintenance, as well.
The British paper cited analysis that EVs cause twice as much road wear as gas-powered cars, perhaps by as much as doubling potholes, cracks, and other degradation of road surfaces.
As the paper noted, “The Telegraph found that the average electric car puts 2.24 times more stress on roads than its petrol equivalent, and 1.95 more than diesel. Larger electric vehicles weighing over 2,000kg (2 tons) cause the most damage, with 2.32 times more wear applied to roads.”
The much heavier weight of electric cars, the Telegraph says, is a major problem because it causes asphalt to shift more which causes cracks and collapse of the surface far quicker than pressure brought by lighter gas-powered cars. And few roads are made to withstand these heavier vehicles.
After dividing currently manufactured EVs into categories that correspond to similar gas-powered cars, the Telegraph then determined the weights of the vehicles.
“They found that the electric vehicles were on average 312kg heavier than similar petrol versions. This is because they must carry heavy batteries, which can weigh up to 500kg,” they reported.
Then analysts used what they call the “fourth power formula,” which is used by roads and highway engineers to determine wear, to see how the weight of EVs would affect the roads. The formula maintains that “if weight on a vehicle’s axle is doubled, it does 16 times the damage to the road.”
It turns out, the much heavier weights of EVs would be a particular problem for rural and low-trafficked roads that were never designed to take constant traffic of heavy vehicles. These roads would be torn apart in short order if nearly everyone was driving an EV, experts said.
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Officials in Scotland have noted that wear on roads would increase by one-third with an increase in EVs, the Telegraph added. Officials estimate that it would cost the government there an additional $207 million a year for road maintenance.
And you know what this means, right? Governments around the world — including in the USA — will start grasping for higher taxes to “fix the roads.”
In the end, experts felt that hybrid vehicles or hydrogen-powered vehicles were a better option than EVs.
Of course, this is just one of the many, many drawbacks to electric cars.
To Americans, a car means the freedom to go wherever one wants for as long as one wants to drive. But EVs are not conducive to such freedom. EVs are horrible for road trips, causing drivers to carefully plan out every hour of driving so as to be near charging stations, and fearing the whole time that they might lose power until a station is found. That anxiety alone quashes the freedom one has with a gas-powered car.
The Western Journal has presented multiple articles about EV owners who found that road trips are simply not easy in an EV. And let’s not even talk about using any sort of EV to tow a trailer or boat — even the vehicles supposedly made for the task.
There is also growing concern among firefighters about EV battery fires that are nearly impossible to extinguish, and the higher costs of insuring and repairing an EV because they are far more prone to serious damage even in low-speed wrecks.
But probably the most insidious part of EVs is the total fiction that they are better for the environment.
Indeed, this new Telegraph report shows that EVs are less friendly for the environment by showing that more trucks will be needed to carry more asphalt, and construction will be ramped up to higher levels than ever simply because EVs will force the issue by wearing out our roadways faster.
But, that aside, EVs put a strain on the electric grid, which will necessitate more production of electricity and that will put even more strain on power grids across the world that are already antiquated and overtaxed today.
Finally, there is the voracious need for heavy metals, lithium, and other supplies to make the billions of EV battery packs that will be needed if the whole world switches to electric cars. Not only does this entail the growth of mining industries that environmentalists hate, but it also empowers the oppressive countries where those mines operate.
The only hopeful sign that EVs are not the future is the fact that it already seems that EV sales are not the growth industry that government subsidizers and climate change scolds had hoped.
Sales are not skyrocketing as fast as EV pushers imagined they would and many car makers are finding their investments in the technology a problem for their bottom line. This causes hope that EVs will fall out of favor among manufacturers and they will get back to making gas cars like they should.
It seems long past the time to take off the rose-colored sunglasses and realize that EVs simply are not the solution to our troubles.
