The Patriot Post® · The Folly of Mandating 'Dead Robots'

We’ve written about the myriad problems with electric vehicles dozens of times over the years. We don’t typically write about how fun they are to drive, though they are. The trouble is government mandates, even if the technology was completely ready for prime time. Maybe someday, engineers will solve electric vehicles’ shortcomings. Like the fact that they’re “dead robots” when temperatures dip below zero.

Such is the case this winter, and that’s compounded by an almost hilarious irony: Ecofascists hype EVs as the ticket to saving the planet from global warming caused by gas-powered vehicle emissions, but EVs can’t operate when it gets too cold.

And it is awfully cold this month. “About 150 million Americans were under a wind chill warning or advisory for dangerous cold and wind,” reported the Associated Press Monday.

Accompanying those winter weather warnings is a rough reality for EV owners: Their cars take longer to charge in the freezing temperatures, and their batteries drain faster, losing as much as 41% when heaters are used inside. That can leave drivers stranded at exactly the wrong time.

“Public charging stations have turned into car graveyards over the past couple of days,” reports Fox 32 in Chicago. One Tesla owner “was forced to abandon her car and get a ride from a friend when it wouldn’t charge.” Another EV driver arrived back at the airport to find a dead battery in his waiting EV.

Another frustrated man said, “We got a bunch of dead robots out here.”

Mark Bilek of the Chicago Auto Trade Association says you just “have to precondition the battery, meaning that you have to get the battery up to the optimal temperature to accept a fast charge.”

Tesla says something similar: “Tesla recommends using Trip Planner to navigate to a charging location for at least 30-45 minutes before arrival to ensure optimal Battery temperature and charging conditions. If the drive to the charging location is less than 30-45 minutes, consider preconditioning the Battery before driving.”

Oh, and don’t turn on the heater.

Problem solved, right?

Other than the environmentally destructive mining for materials, the child labor sometimes involved in that mining, the coal needed to create electricity for charging, the drag on the electric grid in states that already have trouble (ahem, California), the extra particulates released into the atmosphere from tires due to weight and torque, the loss of battery range in extreme cold or heat, generally shorter range than gas-powered cars to begin with, and the subsidies and mandates needed to goad consumers into buying EVs that cost on average far more than gas-powered cars, what’s not to love?

Biden wants EVs to make up 50% of sales by 2030. The EPA is proposing raising that to two-thirds of new vehicles sold by 2032. The elites jet-setting to Davos for the World Economic Forum this week want the same kind of socialist diktats. Not because EVs are superior products or because the market is moving in that direction, but because the ecofascists decided that’s what’s best for us.