The right to choose is the thing. We won't have that if things keep going as they are under Biden and the WEF.
I had a Civic Hybrid for 16 years until I hit a deer one night. At its age that totaled the car. Great car. Hybrids (HEVs) are entirely distinct from from plug-in PHEVs or EVs in spite of a great deal of hardware overlap. Once you are plugging into the grid it turns into cultural and political and control issue. If "they" choose to limit movement, in an EV economy it only takes shutting off the public charging infrastructure. Before long even home chargers might be required to be on a separate circuit regulated through your "smart" meter. Home lights stay on but you can't charge your EV and leave home at all.
I am not sure how my daughter’s car fits into this scenario. She has a MiniCooper hybrid, and she LOVES it ! Since she is now working in the Netherlands, and my oldest son and his wife are living in my daughter’s house, my son now drives the MiniCooper, and he loves it, too. It can be plugged in to charge, and I think that the battery also charges when you are running on gasoline. When I traveled with Robin, she was able to plug it in overnight at motels when we stopped for the night, and she also plugs it in at home in her garage. With it having a fuel tank, she does not have to worry about just using the battery like an all-electric vehicle would do, and she has used it a lot for long trips. My son has a Prius, and it does not plug in, but is also a hybrid. If I were able to have another vehicle, I would like a hybrid like either one of my kids have. Elon Musk was setting up charging stations that ran with solar power, which would have saved a lot of electricity that is being used when an EV is plugged into a power cord somewhere. I don’t know if he ever got that done or not, but I remember that was what he wanted to do originally.
There is a lot of happy feel-good messaging about the unicorns and rainbows in a world of EVs. But the idea of some solar panels offsetting the vast power requirements of an EV economy have been debunked over and over again. EVs could more properly be called Remote Combustion Vehicles instead. People love 'em, because the additional coal burning is "Not In My Back Yard."
This guy has some cash bulging in his pockets and he does a lot of restaurant reviews, mostly of the diners and drive-ins ilk, in the UK. But he also does some entertaining video posts on EVs: He does love his classic and new guzzlers though.
I was only pointing out that they don't do well in cold weather and cold winters. I don't think you have either one, @Nancy Hart so I suspect they would be fine for you as you don't travel far and perhaps the cost of electricity is low where you are.
Just a piece of information I came across. I don't know if we've ever covered here. Computer conglomerate Apple is reportedly canceling plans to develop an electric car. The announcement comes after the company spent ten years and $10 billion on the project, dubbed “Project Titan.” They were hoping to develop a battery that would make electric vehicles much more affordable. They also wanted to expand the capabilities of software programs used in self-driving cars. Ultimately, some Apple executives apparently believed it would put them in a position to buy out Elon Musk’s Tesla. https://republicanview.org/apple-reportedly-ends-electric-car-plans/
Well... who could have seen this coming??? And Biden keeps pushing EVs. Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power Sat, April 6, 2024 "Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades. Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma. The soaring demand is touching off a scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid while pushing commercial customers to go to extraordinary lengths to lock down energy sources, such as building their own power plants." https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/amid-explosive-demand-america-running-152219813.html
Drive less/cook less/move to a city. And if private businesses build their own power plants, who gets to regulate them????
A lot of private manufacturing facilities already generate at least a portion of their own power. The ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown Texas operates eleven natural gas cogeneration units that can generate up to 550 MW, used to generate electricity and high pressure steam for the refining complex. They are subject to state and federal regulations.
I also saw that a solar farm in Texas lost nearly 1000 acres of solar panels to hail dame a few weeks ago. I guess solar isn't reliable even where it is most appropriate.
We have a solar farm near here covering a lot of acres. It is for sale if you would like one. (Went up for sale less than two years after completion)(solar can't work efficiently/effectively in Wisconsin.) We also have a swath of windmills across the area not making a lot of electricity. Hushed talk is that the area will be taken from the farmers as an electric corridor although they are being compensated just now. Hope they read the fine print.