Your Tesla Runs on Coal...

Those of you who've succumbed to the siren song of "free" motive power wrapped in a shiny, stylish new sedan that will "go a long way" toward saving the planet, you might like to know your Tesla runs on coal.

And so do all the other plug-in electric vehicles their manufacturers are foisting on an unsuspecting public.  

A bit brash?  I'll defend my research.  And you just might be surprised...

60.8%?

Yeah, that's the total percentage of electricity currently produced here in America using oil and gas.  60.8%.  That's waaay over half, doncha' know.  Not quite 20% comes from "renewables" these days, including wind and solar, so the energy under our feet will continue to power our cars well into the future.  No matter what John "Lurch" Kerry has to say.  So while you're paying a fortune for a Tesla so you can "save the planet," or just show your ass to your wasteful neighbors, I'm sorry to have to focus your attention on that number stated before:  60.8%.  Why?

Because the little college kid that O'Biden tapped to be Transportation Secretary, the one who's spitting image of the "Who Me?" guy on Mad Magazine, the one who wears his "gayness" like the Red Badge of Courage, the one who took his first year in office off because of a "paternity leave," but that's just me, sniffed recently that if we really want to save money on gas, we should buy electric cars.  Yeah.  Buy cars that cost an average of $60,000, or more, often much more, when a normal, internal combustion car priced at $30,000, barely half as much, can produce nearly the same fuel economy and not foul the Earth.  

Yeah, I know.  Longish sentences.  

Here's a little bit of info for you.  To "fast charge" a Tesla up to 80% of battery capacity at one of those roadside chargers can take as little as 45 minutes.  That's the good news.  You'll pay $0.35 cents a kilowatt hour to transfer that energy from the power plant, which may be fueled by hydrocarbons, to your car.  That works out to about $6.00 a gallon.  That's the bad news.  Or, you can wait 8 hours and pay only $0.13 cents per Kw by charging it at home.  Or beside the road.  Your choice.  A choice between negatives, I'd say.  Or, you could fill up that half-price Toyota at the gas station next door and drive away.

Just remember, you're saving the planet...

Oh yeah, in spite of the fact that every single commercial you see on TV is for electric cars, I thought I'd also pass along another statistic of interest:  Total 2020 Plug-In Hybrid Electrics (PHEV's), not including the fully hybrid Prius-types, like my good friend Geoff West drives, equated to less than 1.8% of total auto sales last year.  The good news for this category, I guess, is that it's up from 1.4% in 2020.  Surprised?  Yeah, the entire category is still less than 10% of total auto sales.  So why are they advertising so furiously?  Because electric cars are cheaper to make!  There's not much to them.  They're all just fluff and pretty sheet metal, fancy Nappa leather seating areas, and a ton of batteries under your feet.

Batteries filled with rare earth minerals, like cobalt.  This stuff is harvested in the dirtiest way imaginable, and from the most repressive places on Earth.  Like China.  Not America, China!  And oh by the way, when that expensive, one-ton battery pack winds down, it may not be placed in landfills or recycled.  They must be buried, deep down, like nuclear waste.  Oh, and they're known to spontaneously combust.  Causing both vehicle and structure fires.   

Feel better about your purchase?  

Would you like to know what's in that battery box down there, under your feet?  Panasonic is currently selling Tesla its "Cylindrical" Series rechargeable batteries to make their little grown-up golf carts go.  They retail for $7.80 each.  The latest Tesla Model S uses 7,800 of them.  Wired in a series.  And then funneled through some Elon magic to an electric motor which drives the wheels. 

I'm pretty sure Tesla gets a volume discount from Panasonic on its batteries.  At least there's that... 

So before you fork over $100k for a shiny new Tesla, or any other electric vehicle, ask yourself this:  Where's all that electricity going to come from if the power plants can't get oil and gas?  Unicorn farts?  And then how much is it likely to cost to connect that grown-up golf cart to the wall with the meter spinning wildly? 

Face it:  Your Tesla currently runs on coal. 

So go forth into the remainder of your day knowing this: The Chuckmeister, your Scribe Without Portfolio, is always on the job.  And like that joke of a newspaper back in the Swamp, the one owned by Laura Sanchez' bald boyfriend, I conduct Fact Checks.  

And this is one they will not like very much, at all...