Posted by Keith in Washington [162.158.107.40] on Sunday, January 09, 2022 at 14:56:44 :
In Reply to: Electric trucks your thoughts -OT posted by Galen [172.69.170.108] on Sunday, January 09, 2022 at 13:07:07 :
Yep the government wants the oil and coal companies to go bankrupt. In fact one nominee of Biden openly stated that they need to go bankrupt.
As to electric power everything that they are demanding, well we don’t have the infrastructure to come even close. With current electrical generation we can’t keep up. Look at the rolling black outs in parts of the country. A lot of our power comes from coal or gas fired plants. Back up power to hospitals and etc is all diesel or gas powered.
Solar power will help but you only get so many hours of sunlight in a day. Currently there are high solar farms in California deserts what impact are they having on wildlife and the environment. The batteries for solar backup systems is not there, they are too expensive and have lots of environmental issues. The wind doesn’t always blow a Texas showed us a major drawback with massive freezing of the turbines So what power source does the government want us to use that’s there 24 hours a day. Oh there is hydroelectric, but you kill a lot of salmon.
Yes we can make a lot of improvements towards cleaner power, but mandating no hydrocarbon driven car, trucks, lawn mowers and everything else by a certain date with out any infrastructure improvements and expansion is irresponsible at best.
People need to get smart and really understand the costs, impacts of power production. I had a discussion with a Tesla owner. They were so proud that they were zero emissions. I simply stated your far from zero emissions. They would not look beyond the plug. That power at the plug was 35% coal fired, 10% wind or solar with the rest being hydroelectric. So your not zero emissions. On top of that where did those batteries come from. How much environmental damage was done building that Tesla.
The real solution is a mix of everything done with an eye on what results in the least environmental impact not unobtainable policy mandates that are rooted in politics.
In answer to your question, no I would not consider an electric truck at this time. They don’t have sufficient range nor are there any 1 tons that are rated for a GVW of 14K or rated for large trailers.
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