Well uncle Tom, if you feel I insulted you, then I apologize, as that was not my intention.
I don't think there is a right or a wrong here, some folks buy EV's, some don't and some will find everything possible out there to play down the feasibility of an EV. I don't have an EV and won't buy one at this stage of my life, but none of the machines in my factory runs on ICE motors, they are all electrical and some have seen no maintenance for more than 30 years.
If I was doing around 17,000 miles a year, I would strongly consider an EV, but I don't and there is a calender life on the batteries, so at this time they are not suitable for me. Even the Hybrids, there is a calender life on the battery and if the intent is to keep the vehicle beyond 10 years, work in the cost of a battery replacement. I had a Prius, did 220,000 miles without replacing a light bulb, but first time the battery warning light flashed, I got rid of it.
We have to accept that Tesla has been very successful and those trying to follow them competitively are enduring a lot of costs and a lot of pain. Some of them may even abort.
China has 15 EV companies and the top of the list BYD is ahead of Tesla in terms of sales.
I admire Musk for a lot of things. The main reason Tesla survived is he outsmarted the stock shorting hedge funds. And the result is the overvaluation of TESLA stock to unrealistic and stupid high prices. Which allowed him substantial cash conversions. There isn't any possible way Tesla is more valuable than Ford. Or GM. Or Toyota.
And his other brilliance was collecting govt subsidies in carbon credits and converting that into mountains of cash by selling them.
None the less, as a viable automaker, he has a long way to go. It's sounds great to state his sales have doubled. Until you leave out the part that he is still a small fraction of vehicles being sold. He's selling into a cult. Had you bought an ICE Toyota, you'd still be driving it well after 220,000 miles passed.
I made a living in coal for a time. It's awful for the environment. It also is responsible for the basic living circumstances that a good portion of the world relies on to function. And it's deeply rooted in economic benefits for a lot of the world. So I'll never insult anyone that supports coal. If they could do away with it, they already would have. No one in the industry thinks it's clean burning.
You may wish to look at China as a green innovator if you like. But they also are building more coal powered facilities worldwide by a factor of 600% more than the rest of the coal users. My math skills are weak. But I'd bet they are not even close to being net green. We export some of the crappiest dirtiest burning coal to them. Because it's cheap and they can't buy enough from us. I can post pics of the mountains of it we sell to them. Week after week after week non stop. Try stopping that economy to mine Lithium to solve 8% of a problem.
I believe Elon made a mistake in using China as a manufacturing source for his EV. They stole anything of technical value and further make $$ building what they steal from. They are going to sell more EVs than he ever will. And we won't get a dime in our economy from that decision.
As far as this thread and it's insults, I think Bee was very patient and generous as I watch you call him a liar etc. As far as general insults, I'll remind you of one of your overused ones.
You state with some regularity what a struggle it is for you trying to deal with people that think they know things, that they really don't. I paraphrased that a bit. There are several versions of it you use. Things like lack of a good education. Or don't know how to properly research. Or properly post a link.
You might want to check yourself in a mental mirror before you use that one. This board is diverse with people that have smarts that come from a huge pool of backgrounds. That you either fail to see or don't wish to accept. If the apocalypse comes, I'll pick a career military man over a weak engineer, any day of the week.
