Response to Stossel's Inconvenient Facts about EVs

Part 2 here

1. Everyone is biased. Stossel gives only half the story. I'm giving you the other half. You can see my links below and see the sources I got the information from. Anyone that doesn't give you references you can check yourself is suspect in my opinion.
2. Stossel's point seems to be since EVs also harm people and damage the environment, we shouldn't embrace them.
3. My point is the EVs harm less people and damage the environment less than ICE vehicles. That's a verifiable fact. Research it yourself using primary data sources, not from pundits or commentators. You can see my links below and see the sources I got the information from. Again, anyone that doesn't give you references you can check yourself is suspect in my opinion.
4. When given two things that both harm people and the environment, it would seem logical to choose the one that harms less rather than the one that harms more.

Links to data

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[deanmcmanis]

All good points made! The key element often forgotten in these discussions is fostering change, from a world dominated by fossil fuels/petroleum today. Without incentives to change, most people will stay with the technologies that they have known all of their lives. As you said, the petroleum industry will still make billions off of the many industries that will still use oil/gas/byproducts for the foreseeable future. When the world starts moving towards alternatives to gasoline-only vehicles in transportation, then money and innovations start working to resolve the issues with batteries (and overall value) as we are already seeing. The Aptera is a great example of how modern EVs can be an improvement over ICE vehicles. The Aptera's super efficiency means that it can use fewer batteries, and/or go much further with a smaller battery pack. And the onboard solar PV cells can reduce or eliminate the need for recharging when the sun is shining. As with any one-sided discussion, there is no real counterpoint provided in his video. So it is good that you clarify the flaws in their analysis. In a backwards way, these kinds of EV criticisms help promote efficient EVs like the Aptera. Because the Aptera will be the best example of how EVs can be far better than ICE vehicles (for some people). Using fewer resources to build, and fewer resources to drive, with less reliance on the public charging network, all for a reasonable price. Having better options with efficient EVs like the Aptera accelerates positive change.

[DrTeeHenry]

Here in SE Washington state our electricity is produced from 77.9% hydroelectric, 9.9% nuclear, 8.2% wind and 4% unspecified (0% coal, petroleum and natural gas) (2020 data). On top of that, ~45% of our electricity at our home is provided by rooftop solar. So I’ll be content and guilt-free plugging my Aptera in at home (when needed) and solar-charging it in the driveway and when I’m driving down the street past that petrol station with a smile on my face. 😊

[fernandop]

My main issue is charging time, and long distance travel, still takes way to long for an EV to match the efficiency of a gas car

[davidgeorge]

Mark P Mills is a strategic partner with Cottonwood Venture Partners in Houston Texas. He is as unbiased about electrification as the pork industry is when citing research that bacon is part of a healthy diet.

[Thoughmuchistaken]

I could get onboard a little with Stossel, if at the end he said: "We need to build out electricfied rail, and improve bus and bicycle routes and get people out of cars wherever possible." But he was never going to say any of that.

[chriscangdradaniel]

Electric cars being “green” gives me “we don’t need farms because I get my groceries from the store” vibes.

[jamesengland]

Tesla 's own study says THEIR cars break even at under 7, 000 miles, because of all their efforts.

[sylvainlaurin]

Cobalt is also used for oil refining. So which of ICE car or EV does call for children in mines ? Remember that cobalt traceability is not mandatory for fuel because this element is not included in oil.
It's true that renewable energy is not that good in USA but BC and Quebec provinces in Canada has more than 95% of renewable energy. So manufacturers should sell their cars in those regions at first !!

[ddessert]

Like politics and religion, this is a topic that people are passionate about and facts don't matter to them. (On all three topics, no matter your stand on them.) It is incredibly difficult to change someone's mind on these topics or to even show that they might not be looking at the full picture. Personally, I think Steve did a good job in presenting a different viewpoint on EVs which most of us following and supporting this channel would agree with. EVs are in general better than ICE vehicles but EVs vary greatly as do ICE vehicles. So far the Aptera is sitting on top of both vehicles for it's purpose.

[rashidclark]

6:20 Another advantage of electricity generation over fossil fuels is that the former can change its sources significantly over time. How much renewable energy is in the mix may be different 10 years from now.

[alsjogren]

Seattle City Light 86% hydro, 5% wind, 5% nuclear, 1% BioGas, and 3% unspecified.

[fisherkieds]

The biggest thing that isn't being factored is Aptera's efficiency

[kenmcclow]

While batteries are currently lithium based and use cobalt, I wouldn't fixate too much on that because LFP batteries are rapidly supplanting cobalt using batteries for car up to around 250 miles of range since the patents came off in 2020. Prior to that only China was exempt from the patents so they had a head start. While there may be 5 kilos of lithium in a battery, the current shortages are graphite which is 50% of the battery and China cornered the market for that and Nickel.
I think the Sodium and Silicon battery tech is fast approaching and one or both chemistries will supplant Lithium for some applications

[examinerian]

Ooh, cherry-picked points is right! Are those two shilling for the oil companies?!

Things they conveniently omitted from their argument:
- Cobalt is used in refining oil, whilst advances in battery tech is phasing cobalt out of EVs. Petrochem already uses more now.
- Battery minerals can be recycled, up to 95% of a battery can currently be recovered and rebuilt into new batteries .
- How many EVs have reached the point where their batteries need replacing? Early (pre 2012) stuff like 1st-gen LEAF or Mitsubishi iMEV had disproportionately high incidents, falling rapidly as tech improved from mid-2010's.
- Old EV batteries (say <80% of original capacity) can have individual cells replaced, or can be repurposed as grid storage. They don't go to landfill.
- EVs actually give owners a choice of how to charge, from home systems or inbuilt PV up to rapid public. All ICE cars need to same sort of thing, provided by very few companies at source.
- More Li-Ion chemistry batteries are landfilled each year from disposable vaping kit, just chucked without thought.

And many more...😁

[TonyG_Film]

I can’t watch this video. Not because there’s anything wrong with it. Because it makes me so mad. The biggest argument people against EVs make is “it won’t make a difference”. It’s the same argument they make about climate change. They like to argue “we can’t prove it’s caused by humans”. Both augments are the same because they make them to argue for the status quo. Of course, small incremental steps don’t seem like they make a difference. But they leave out the inconvenient facts that doing nothing is not an answer. They leave out the inconvenient truth that energy producers are slowly moving away from coal and to cleaner energy. They leave out the facts that EV technology is in its infancy. That things like Aptera will usher in a new way of thinking about clean efficient energy. They leave out the fact that companies produce electric buses and are working on producing electric airplanes. Yes those things are still a small dent. But the argument to do nothing is not only frustrating, it’s suicidal. Screw John Stossel and everyone like him still selling the same load of crap.

[speciesofspaces]

Lowering consumption along with higher efficiency as well as much higher future energy and material costs will not allow an EV market to simply replace the current number of ICE vehicles. The fact is we are most likely near the end of cheap materials and cheap energy which means EV's won't be replacing all the ICE vehicles in number - a future with fewer vehicles is tantamount to our survival. The constraints of the system and limited natural resources (including extraction and processing costs) will probably begin the tightening of the markets in general. Renewables with their lower energy density come with a built-in incentive to consume less which means using less energy through our behavior as much as the technology itself being more efficient. So all this has less to do with meeting the growing demands of future energy consumption and more the hard lesson of being forced by the climate system to conserve and grow less. For many people in the US that sounds absurd but for much of the developing world that is the reality and will be for the rest of us as well. Now would be the time to take stock and do our best to own less, use less and require less stuff which directly applies to our energy consumption.

To put it simply if the average person in a current temperate climate could make do with say an average off-grid system right now by timing their use, storing as much as possible and generally using less electricity then maybe we'd have a truer sense of what all this should be like - instead of assuming we are going to be adding more and more renewable tech simply through our consumer appetite for more growth. But of course "limited growth" in our current economic system is not really allowed.

[rvmorgan]

the 10% loss from charging is a little off the best I have heard of is 35% loss from charging you have to put around 150% back into the battery to fully charge it back the best I know of is 135% to charge. I have not heard anyone talk about what it will take to get rid of the evs we can not just crush them and melt them back down. I don't even know what it takes to reprocess the battery

[chrisbailey]

I am curious, 100 years ago how efficient was the oil refining process compared to what it is today? To think that battery technology is going to be stagnant is ignorant.

[MH-Tesla]

EVs will take over only if the free market is allowed to work. Governments banning will not help. We didn't ban horse carriages. We didn't ban VHS tapes. We didn't ban flip phones. The market will rule.

[matteoricci]

Check almost breaking news from fully charged, they are really good on this topic, they have a scale graph telling quantitatively how bad the carbon use is compared