Wall Street Journal Friday has two large articles on $35 Billion plans to offer a battery version of every vehicle - but still build petro Ram trucks.

Stock analysts say the this late announcement is behind the other vehicle companies.

5 large battery making factories to be built in USA by Stellantis and partners.

New administration is going to issue even more restrictive NOx regulations making petro vehicles nearly impossible to certify for sale.

My thoughts:

Will the electrical grid be stressed by this during certain hours?
Will most of the USA experience CA-TX grid problems often?
Will customers hold onto old petro fueled vehicles “just in case” ?
Little trailers with generators and fuel tanks being towed may become common.
The used vehicle market is destined to change a lot.
Repair is going to be “unplug, replace suspect module & pray”
and both new and remanufactured modules will be expensive - maybe greater than present transmission and engine jobs.

Better hope an EMP is not set off high above the USA.

The issues listed are only the tip of the iceberg. What was described above and below does not adequately cover the move to EV. Petrol vehicles will be legislated out with tougher fuel economy stds and much higher fuel prices will push consumers away from petrol vehicles. Today EVs are much more expensive than petrol equivalents - this must change soon to drive the transition from petrol to EV.

Moving away from petrol based ICE vehicles is only accomplished if Congress agrees to tighten regs and priority incentives to the transition to EV vehicles. The overall life cycle issues of moving to EV are not being discussed and debated.

There are national security issues involved with any move to EV. China owns the raw materials rights for all the rare earth elements in play and that by itself has security implications. The environmental issues with mining these materials is never discussed. Battery replacements are costly and battery performance is dependent on favorable weather conditions. All of these and other issues need to be tabled, discussed and debated on the true cost and benefits. Also the materials used in advanced microchip modules including those used today in our defense industry for weapon systems, aircraft, and others are also dependent on Chinese provisioning.

Unless there are major advancements in battery technologies and ease of re-charging for the public, the recharging cycles and the range limits will become a major adjustment for the public.

Toyota is not fully committed to a full EV only future --- their plans including research and development of hydrogen fuel cells and other integrated / hybrid approaches.

The electricity used to recharge the battery packs will need to be augmented by building and bringing online new power plants. A big selling point that we hear about in moving to EV is the use of renewable sources like solar and wind to augment power availability. As of today, there are few plans in place for these changes. The next 10-15 years could be difficult as EV tries to take hold and petrol is de-emphasized. Get ready for high petrol and other fossil fuel prices (natural gas, etc.).

Until this all works out - Think Cali brownouts - potential winter gridlock i.e. Texas winter 2021 fiasco regarding power supplies for heating of commercial and residential facilities.

A few other things to add- Some folks are looking at 13-15 years down the road and saying "Well, cars and trucks can change a lot in that time frame." However, the pace of change in the automotive universe is slowing. There are far fewer differences between my 2009 Ram, that I just sold, and the 2020 that I'm driving, than there were between a 1960 New Yorker, and a 1971. When I sold cars in the 90's, the Gen III Caravan/Voyager arrived in 1995, when the genre was 12 years old. The current Pacifica is now 14 years old, and largely unchanged. It sells alongside a Caravan that dates to 2005 or so. Every automaker has rigs that are long in the tooth, but still sell enough to warrant production.
The switch to electrics isn't driven by the market. It's being driven by the government. So, I'll posit this: Is there a product- of any sort- out there that satisfies the customer's needs, but the design, engineering, and marketing is driven solely by an entity that has does not participate in the marketplace of that product, in any fashion?

"The switch to electrics isn't driven by the market. It's being driven by the government. So, I'll posit this: Is there a product- of any sort- out there that satisfies the customer's needs, but the design, engineering, and marketing is driven solely by an entity that has does not participate in the marketplace of that product, in any fashion?



VW Bug? Does history repeat itself?

From Wikipedia below.


The need for a people's car (Volkswagen in German), its concept and its functional objectives were formulated by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for his country's new road network (Reichsautobahn).

Another thing to consider that I've NEVER heard mentioned, much less discussed: What about military vehicles? A modern military is HEAVILY reliant on vehicles. Sure, an M1 Abrams has a turbine engine, but the vast majority of the military operates with modified versions of commercial vehicles, most currently with diesel engines. When development and production of commercial ICE is banned by the government, what next? I pity the soldier going into combat in the first electric HMMWV...

The only reason Toyota is against EV's is because if it goes that way they'll lose their king of quality/reliability status. When is the last time anyone bought a Toyota because of how it looked, drove or the features it had besides being reliable?

Military vehicles are exempt from any emissions standards so I'd expect them to continue using diesels

So it's okay for the government to pollute, but the public is banned from it.

What a shocker.

You peasants do as we tell you to do, sounds about right.

Yes and now they are sending huge fines to performance shops

That's why prices on 2004 and older Diesel Rams have gone through the roof.
The last of the Cummins Rams with ZERO emissions stuff on them.
So you can still do pretty much whatever you want to them & flip off the EPA.

The trick now is getting hold of the tuners & parts while you can still get them.
And then hope for a governmental swing back to reality in 3 1/2 yrs when working stiffs are sick of paying $6/gal.

Im so bothered by the crying adults in those vids. ANY wrench monkey knows the whole emissions deal and the epa got serious in 1975/1976 and everyone knows things that skirt any emissions is breaking the law and comes with heavy fines

Its the same reason us guys with the good old nos paints cant sell or spray them for others. DA.

Then the first vid tries to justify his law breaking and explain the emission systems he seems to know very well and so he clearly knew of the emission alteration laws.

My 96 PSD is 100% unmodified, under 30k miles, a f250 4x4 5 speed like new and ive been offered 15k more then sticker was but ive no need or reason to sell.... why just to buy a newer more costly to run rig?

My semi tractor I haul grain with I bought new and they hate it, the 8v detroit 2 stroke kicks ass and rolls smoke better then a turned up deuce and a half. I love manual injection pumps vs this new age crap.

But really, people know whats up.... they just dont think they will get nailed.

I have written this before but consider it important and USA citizens should think more about it:

If you can reduce NOx emissions by 79% for very little cost, should the government legally demand it to be done ?

What about lowering NOx from 79% less to 89% at 100% greater cost?

What about lowering NOx from 89% less to 99% less at 500% greater cost?

What about lowering NOx from 99% to 99.9% less at 1000% greater cost?

What do you say to someone who correctly points out that
when the legal requirement to reduce from 79% NOx to 89% went into effect
it also created more CO2 emissions,
required more importation of oil,
and sucked money away from worthy spending on water pollution,
or developing cures for deadly diseases?

What do you say to the person who correctly points out that there are other relatively cheap ways to prevent ground level NOx from chemically reacting into ground level Ozone?

What do you say to the person who correctly points out that natural rain (or sprayed mists) washes NOx from the air into the soil which fertilizes plant growth?

One can be totally dedicated to science and.wise spending of money and think these questions important.

Who's going to develop/produce those those diesels for a couple thousand military vehicles per year? At what cost (to us taxpayers)?

I work for a truck and bus OEM, and I’ve watched a lot of proposals and pushes for alternative fuels be worked on as projects in the 9 years I’ve worked there.
I work in chassis so I am not in the front lines as far as these projects so my observations are from talking to other engineers involved in the projects and seeing company communications.
When I first started working there, CNG was a big push but that faded, other than we did end up putting CNG busses on the market.
We are selling some EV busses now too, and development work has been done to carry that technology over to the medium duty truck line which is on the same chassis.
The latest push seems to be with fuel cells. We were in a partnership with a European OEM, and now are owned by them, and that seems to be where Europe is going.
A lot of it boils down to vocation as far as practicality of different energy sources to propel trucks and busses. School buses can work ok as EV, as they can charge overnight than go out and do their routes for a few hours, then return and charge for hours before going back out for afternoon routes.
Some delivery trucks in urban areas might do OK electric.
CNG never took hold except for several vocations it seems. Some refuse truck fleets love CNG as they can make their own fuel from landfills. I’ve seen cement mixer fleets that use CNG.
I have doubts EV is going to ever be practical for over the road. Stopping for an hour or two to charge a semi isn’t going to work. I’ve seen proposals where low battery packs would be quickly swapped for fresh charged ones at trucks stops but that seems impractical to set up the infrastructure to do that.
Other vocations EV is doubtful to ever be practical, fire trucks, construction, utility companies where trucks operate remote and running equipment off the power train for their work are several examples.
It’s going to take a long while to figure it all out but I think in the end there will be different fuel power for different truck vocations just like is happening with school buses now.
Cars and light trucks will probably end up being similar, EV can grow in % of the fleet, but can it ever be 100%? I have my doubts!

This might be a little off topic but they have discovered a vast amount of lithium in the imperial valley ca at the southern end of the salton sea, they are claiming it holds about 75 years worth of the stuff, it will not need to be extracting from the earth using conventional mining techniques as in other countries, i believe it exists in the water or brine used in the power plants there, the upside to this is it will not need to be imported here from other countries for the lithium batteries, the problem will be getting thru all the red tape in california, time will tell. i have been holding on to property there that has been in my family for 60 plus years, im hoping the state does not screw this up and lets it happen.

Just look at how much technology has done to reduce emissions from the internal combustion engine in the last few decades! All while increasing power tremendously! Why isn't this good enough to allow us to continue to have the choice of the ICE operated vehicle? Why does the federal government have to decide when we've come leaps and bounds already?! This is a (semi) free country.

Right now in China they have electric filling stations where you don't recharge the battery that's in the vehicle - the whole battery is swapped out for a fully charged one. Whether this is practical in the long run for all applications, in all sorts of weather conditions, remains to be seen. If it does it will rely heavily on automotve designs being modified to accommodate quick swaps. I don't see gas or diesel, or CNG going away, but maybe for those vehicles where unlimited range and an onboard fuel supply is desirable it may end up running something like straight hydrogen gas to power either internal combustion engines modified to run on hydrogen, or in fuel cells to generate electricity.
From an environmental standpoint, I for one won't mind if China skips mechanizing its people on traditional fossil fuels and goes straight to electric, much like most of the 3rd world skipped landline technology and embraced wiresless instead. . Lord knows they pollute enough without 3 billion gas-burning cars on their roads. But from a technology and energy economics standpoint it's a different story. China's already eating our lunch when it comes to manufacturing. It may not be long before the rest of the world starts spying on them and stealing their ideas (for a change) when it comes to EV and other technology

Good point Greenwood. The current Chrysler Pacifica is actually 6 years old. The Pacifica started production in 2016 for the 2017 model year.

The 5th generation Ram 1500 truck (introduced for the 2009 model year) is still in production as the Ram 1500 Classic. The new (6th generation) Ram 1500 came out in 2019 and is being sold alongside the Ram 1500 Classic.

I think you'll still be able to buy a new gasser until they outlaw them. Right before covid there were articles saying the new charger/challenger would be built along with the old charger/challenger like they're doing with the ram and Fiat 500. They'll still build them but dont expect development to continue

1) how do they plan to dig it up then... wave a magic wand?

2) CA... where the local Gov would rather let the entire State burn the ground, before cutting down some trees and allowing proper forest management to take place. Or even allow old Gold mines to be reopened... Good luck getting that group of do gooders to allow millions of tons of lithium (or anything else) to be pulled from the ground... regardless of method.

One thing this EV push is doing, is turning China into the OPEC of the future....
They have no problems stripping the land bare for profit.
While pumping out more pollution than the rest of the world saves in the process.