Electric Vehicles Are Just a Diversion - DON'T BE FOOLED

Hendrik Gerritsz Pot; Allegory of Flora's Wagon of Fools around 1640. A cartload of tulip-deranged Dutchman leading the common workers into the sea. Substitute EV Over-Promoters for the tulip-frenzied.

Please read the Editor's Notes first to be better able to understand the problem with electric cars

EDITOR'S NOTE January 5, 2012;: A KPMG Survey released today reported that despite continuing heavy investment by auto makers in electric propulsion technologies, global automotive executives don't expect e-car sales to exceed 15 percent of annual global auto sales before 2025. Complete Article

EDITOR'S NOTE January 4, 2012;: 2011 U.S New Light Vehicle Sales 12,800,000; 2011 EV Sales Scorecard: Nissan Leaf (100% Electric) 9,674, Chevrolet Volt (EV/Hybrid) 7,671 with a direct cost of $7,500 each to the American taxpayers for a total of $130,087,500 (not including $BILLIONS in DOE research grants, smart grid grants and other fairy tale expenditures...EV's are not now and will never become a meaningful replacement for gasoline addiction, unless the physics of batteries is advanced to Jetson knowledge… I have more faith in Flux Capacitors... do you?

EDITOR'S NOTE January 4, 2012;: American consumer interest in Plug-ins continues to decline Pike Research Report

EDITOR'S NOTE December 8, 2011;: Today's news: EV News from Mitsubishi starting delivery of their EV, AMP showing another EV in Detroit, was bad (realistic?) EV news; EV maker Aptera goes bankrupt; Tesla downgraded; Pike Research says EV and Hybrids less than 5% of U.S. Market in 2017; and other stories.

EDITOR'S NOTE July 19, 2011: Autoline Daily reported on their TV newscast that Steven Chu the U.S. Secretary of Energy was in Detroit yesterday to talk-up battery developments for electric cars. That’s because the Obama Administration is counting heavily on electric cars to meet its proposed CAFE standard of 56.2 miles per gallon. But even Secretary Chu admitted there’s only a 50-50 chance batteries will be plentiful and affordable by 2021...and he’s an optimist!

Recently there has been a slew of slowdowns and cancellations in the EV world. JCI wants to back out of its battery joint venture with Saft. Renault has delayed construction of its battery plant in France. And there are rumors Nissan will delay building EVs and batteries in the U.S.

Secretary Chu also visited battery maker A123’s plant in the Detroit area to celebrate them hiring their 1,000th employee, so far the Department of Energy has granted $249 million to A123 to make batteries in Michigan. That means it has cost $249,000 to create each of those jobs. Now, that cost may drop over time, but it certainly calls into question whether electric cars will be cost effective any time soon

Are Electric Vehicles a Diversion or Soultion To America's 93 Year Old Gasoline Addiction

Auto Central December 12, 2009; President Obama is using his bully pulpit to promote a goal of 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015 (big whoopee, out of 300 million vehicles). Our President's naive words and deeds, along with myriad "car of the year" nominations and honors being given to untested, minimal production electric vehicles by mis-informed sycophantic automotive publications, are helping support the oil industry's EV over-hyping, which has already allowed our government to "back-burner" real solutions, and is helping sustain and prolong Big Oil's anti-American, vastly profitable monopoly, "the gasoline status-quo" for as long as possible (and why wouldn't they).

This growing pro-EV and anti-any other alt fuel propaganda, comes in contradiction to easily obtained facts that show EV's will not to be a Short, Mid or even a Long-term alt fuel solution, and is marginalizing our desperately needed alt-fuel reality to provide American's with a ubiquitous domestic, renewable, and green(er) fuel alternative along with a bonus of a much needed "silver bullet" that can super-charge our economy.

The Auto Channel believes that before our government commits one more nickel to support battery and recharging research, and offering more $7500 tax breaks for the purchase of "not ready for prime time" Electric Vehicles, America needs to put the cart before the horse and do something now to reduce or eliminate our addiction to, and the economic harm which comes as a direct result from buying imported oil (52% of the U.S. Trade Deficit can be blamed on importing oil*)...and when we are off the black smack, we as a nation can gleefully spend our treasury and time on future energy research, without our nation being held hostage to the ticking bomb, from OPEC and its allies, now being held over our collective heads, our pocketbooks and our beloved country's foreign policy.

The impossible promise of EV's as the replacement for gasoline has helped create today's pop culture fad which like Holland's 17th century "Tulip-Frenzy", has diverted our country's alt fuel mojo and resources away from real solutions that can "get us off of gasoline now", and is helping Big Oil continue to profit from its 100 year monopolistic "gasoline as fuel" status-quo.

For the record, The Auto Channel was never anti-electric vehicles...and will never be against any solution to get America off of gasoline now, but EV's time has not yet come or may never come, but the attention given to it has hurt our country. And as patriotic Americans and consumer advocates we feel it our duty to publish the truth and help stop the EV fairy-tale which has allowed the hype and propaganda of, a beautiful new world filled with EV's, to displace our attention, financial resources, common will and government support of a real, timely and practical solution to our country's festering gasoline addiction.

Anti-EV, no way, in fact over the past 10 years even before EV’s became cool The Auto Channel championed the introduction of a future wave of electric vehicles equipped with hydrogen fuel-cells. (SEE: Electric Vehicles (EVs) Now Being Served)

Our EV support (we invested in, developed and publish EV-MOTORING.COM) was based on a future replacement of gasoline with sustainable, clean and domestic electric vehicles recharged on the go by hydrogen fuel-cells. But something changed, the fuel cell left the equation and our government was corrupted into supporting the replacement of gasoline by plug-in's, to that end it offered billion dollar DOE grants to Big Power and connected "entrepreneurs" for smart-grids, recharging schemes and advanced battery research to the detriment of a real solution.

Today’s daily EV puffery, promulgated through a well-planned and executed misinformation campaign, which is enhanced by a ubiquitous lack of knowledge, has diverted attention and billions of dollars from the real answer, it has also redirected our country’s collective desire for a timely replacement for gasoline with a mass hysteria that hooks Americans on the EV fairytale a situation that has not gone unnoticed by former electric vehicle agnostics who have now converted into electric vehicle evangelicals. These EV over-Promoters, in spite of the facts and to the detriment of our implementing a timely solution to get the United States off our gasoline dependency, have successfully managed to take our collective eyes off the ball...I guess that billions of dollars and Big Oil's blessing (see Big Oil Benefits From Divide and Conquer) are able to do that.

Promoting electric vehicles is all well and good, but something very dangerous and counterproductive to our country's well-being is happening: the daily orchestrated cacophony of exaggerated “news” of an Electric Messiah, Battery breakthroughs, Billion dollar smart-grid investments and daily EV Recharging announcements from across America, have caused our naive politicians and sycophantic mainstream press (The Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome) to become blinded to reality by the impossible dream (or calculated lie) of a near term meaningful solution to replace the gasoline monopoly and all that it means.

This blindness to the truth has created a modern “tulip frenzy” which has effectively (or should I say efficiently) dulled down our nation's formerly growing collective civic will to secure a mandate for the timely replacement for oil based fuels now, while supporting the continuation and investment in the research of fuels for our future's vehicles. But the insidious, foolish and anti-American EV-frenzy supported and promoted by our Government (unlike the Dutch Government which in 1637 created and distributed pamphlets filled with facts about the over-hyping of tulips, meant to protect their citizens from making foolish "investments" in Tulips) has moved America's collective alt fuel concern away from our 300 million gasoline drinking vehicles on U.S. roads today, and replaced it with a zombie-like stupor and willingness to wait (for how long?) for the professed and promised just-over-the-horizon EV miracle, while the 100 year old status-quo continues to pump a trillion dollars of gasoline a year into North America's cars and unconscionable profits into Big Oil's treasury.

Eliminating the use of most gasoline and diesel in the very short term is realistic, patriotic and relatively easy...all it would take is a mandate from Washington DC that orders oil companies to cease producing old E10 or E15 gasoline and replace them all with a drop-in single, tested and available High-Test Flex-Fuel (E85) or Methanol modern sustainable, domestic fuels that can run our cars and light trucks (very well, thank you). We just have to do it; smoothly and quietly, like we did when our country changed over from leaded to unleaded gasoline back in the 1970’s. We also need to simultaneously mandate the replacement of petroleum oil-based diesel by either CNG (Natural Gas) or Bio-Diesel for trucks, buses and other heavy duty vehicles.

During the past 15 years The Auto Channel has invested its editorial and economic resources to research, understand and provide in-depth and many times exclusive text and video coverage of ALT Fuels including Electric vehicles, Wind, Hydrogen, Fuel-cells, CNG and Propane, and have done it far more vigorously than any other mainstream automotive web site.

Today, more than ever, we continue to strongly support our belief that some day electric, hydrogen or a yet unknown fuel must and will power all of our vehicles.

But America cannot afford to wait until that some day, after “the” alt fuel has been discovered, invented, tested and made available commercially. All of the facts agree that now is the absolutely correct point in our history to mandate the ubiquitous replacement for our 115 year old government subsidized ($10 billion per year) monopolistic gasoline dependency.

In spite of all of mainstream media's sycophantic "news"(better noise) about Electric Vehicles, PHEV's and new battery technology; most independent automotive futurists, along with every auto manufacturer's published sales projections for their electric vehicle production, concurs with our supposition that as long as gasoline powered cars continue to be sold in much greater numbers than electric vehicles, EV's will never even become a mid-term solution to our festering gasoline dependency; there will be just too few EV's built, sold and on the road to enable a meaningful reduction in gasoline use now or ever over the next 40, 50, 100 years or maybe never.

Today's oft repeated fairy-tale of electric replacing our 300 million plus gasoline powered vehicles on U.S. roads today is not only an impossibility, but we believe, is another insidious example of a well-planned diversionary tactic used to turbo charge Big Oil's “Divide and Conquer” strategy.

Big Oil's frequently chanted mantra that “there is not just one replacement for gasoline but many” is a message that is the spear point of a misinformation campaign designed to marginalize and delay the logical and patriotic mandate for implementation of the real, domestic and readily available replacement for gasoline; alcohol. Big Oil's goal is to continue the status-quo monopoly that they love (and profit from – big time) for as long as possible into the future, or until they own and can monopolize oil's replacement.

The truth (which is sublimated by Divide and Conquer) is that today there already exists a domestically produced, sustainable and cleaner fuel than gasoline, a fuel that has already replaced gasoline in 7 million American flex-fuel cars and trucks and is realistically available to eliminate the use of 85% of gasoline today, not in 10, 20 or 100 years, but NOW. Now before more heroes have given their lives or limbs to sustain the criminal status-quo, NOW, before we purchase and pollute our world by burning another trillion dollars’ worth of gasoline another year.

Replacing gasoline with flex-fuel today will end our export of a billion American dollars each day to people who not only hate our way of life and our freedoms but are financing the wars to destroy us. Replacing gasoline with flex-fuel today will radically minimize the influence and mammoth lobbying power of Big Oil, an industry that presently takes a trillion dollars a year from the American economy just when we need it the most. Imagine the positive impact that a trillion dollars multiplying within our economy will have on our families, our farmers, our green industries, America's labor force and our government's ability to do the right thing for our citizens.

So we scream with outrage, "NOW!" Now is the time for every American to tell their representatives in government to stand up and remove themselves from under the thumb of the oil lobby, because fellow Americans, we must not take it anymore; not now, not ever again, it's time NOW for Flex-fuel to become the new “ Regular”. Ethanol is an American Solution to America's Problem.

By Bob Gordon
President and Co-Publisher
The Auto Channel

SEE ALSO: Alcohol and Driving Do Mix

Los Angeles, California December 3, 2009; As many of our regular readers know, we here at The Auto Channel have been big supporters of Electric Vehicles, and will continue to be so.

But with yesterday's announcement by Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, that GM is now projecting sales of less than 300,000 EV's over the next 5 years (in a recent speech Carlos Goshn of Renault-Nissan said that by 2020 6 million EV's will be on the road), with these and other EV projections in mind it has become clear to me that EV's are not a near or even a mid-term solution for our oil dependence.

I now believe that the current and exponentially growing EV hype is not only strange and unsettling but good for Big Oil and very dangerous for America.

After two days at the 2009 LA Auto Show, I've learned one thing; Big Power has aligned itself with Big Oil to take American eyes off of a quick, easy and very doable solution to rid the United States' of its addiction to both foreign and domestic oil based fuels, that up until now were the only choices to power the freedom of movement that we Americans demand.

Over the past few weeks the hype about how our future's transportation needs can be met by Electric Vehicles, and how the big electric utilities are teaming with the carmakers to make EV's a reality has reached a cresendo. But when I put two and two together, I see another very clever manifestation of Big Oils century old strategy to "Divide and Conquer" to keep us addicts addicted.

The Auto Channel ownership believes that there are two real and practical solutions to our immediate and mid-future fuel needs:

The first is virtually sustainable - Natural Gas(CNG):

North America has hundreds of years of Natural Gas reserves with more being found each day, we just have to do what the rest of the world has learned to do, compress it and make it available for drivers and they will use it and compared to oil based fuels it's cheaper, less polluting, there's lots of here and it works! Infrastructure is just our desire away.

The second is absolutely sustainable – Ethanol:

Ethanol is a real solution to not only replace gasoline vehicles in the future, but has the bones to rapidly wean the existing 200 million EFI equipped vehicles on the road that here to for are 100% dependent on Big Oil to provide the fuel they need.

Enough of the Bull:

Every farmer in the world understands that to make ethanol viable here in the U.S. they need to grow the raw material for this ancient elixir from other than food plants, and good old (new strains)of Switch Grass is the “now” answer...it is a plant that is just like a weed and can grow (and does) everywhere...once planted it requires very little care or watering or fertilizing to grow and once established (about two years) it can continue be harvested after each growing season with a farmer's existing equipment forever.

The farmers that we talked to are excited about this opportunity to add another cash crop, not as a replacement for the food plants they are now growing on their most fertile fields, but a new crop that can utilize secondary fields which up until now have been uneconomically feasible to plant crops on.

To make this "best solution" a priority it is imperative that this country develop a consortium that will play the role of Big Ethanol and facilitate the means to remove our dependence on oil and all that means...oh happy day!

By the way GM, Ford and Chrysler already lead the world in manufacturing Flex-fuel vehicles, so why are they so quiet about E85 now...anyone know? bgordon@theautochnanel.com

Video from Argonne National Lab.

'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.' Peter Finch in Network, 1976.