David Blackmon
A crash test study conducted by researchers at The University of Nebraska holds troubling news for the electric vehicle industry and policymakers focused on forcing the cars on consumers. The Canadian Press reports that the study has found what anyone able to reason critically has known for years, which is that US highway guardrails are not strong enough to withstand the force of EVs that weigh 1,000 – 4,000 lbs. more than their gas-powered counterparts.
Oh. That’s a problem, isn’t it?
Yes, it is, and it’s a problem this is going to cost US taxpayers billions reinforce or rebuild the country’s millions of highway guardrails in the coming years if the Biden plan to mandate a full conversion to EVs eventually succeeds. We will either build new rails capable of saving lives of passengers in these heavy EVs or we will keep the existing guardrails just for show to make us feel better – like we do with airport security now.
Now, think of this: What’s going to happen when road designers finally start to really press the policymakers about the fact that the roads themselves are not designed to withstand the pressure of these much heavier EVs, and are being torn up and left in need of repair or complete re-paving years sooner than had been anticipated?
Some honest researchers have been raising this issue in recent years but have gained little traction with politicians at all levels of government. After all, dealing with this very real issue would interfere with their virtue signaling opportunities that are so helpful in re-election campaigns.
Think of how many trillions of dollars that absolute reality is going to cost our society in the decades to come. But we’re not supposed to talk about it right now because the politicians find it all too inconvenient.
But wait, it gets worse.
You know all those multi-level parking garages that have been built across our society in recent decades? There are hundreds of thousands of them in the US alone. How many of those multi-level concrete parking facilities do you suppose were built with 6,000 lb. EVs in mind, rather than 3,000 lb. gas cars? Don’t you imagine the number would approach zero?
Now, think how many trillions of dollars reinforcing and replacing all those substandard parking garages is going to cost our society, all in the name of “doing something” about the climate boogeyman.
And I haven’t even talked about all those hundreds of thousands of bridges all over the country. They will all have to be reinforced or rebuilt entirely, too.
Oh.
Now, add all this to the trillions of dollars it is going to cost us to double or triple generation capacity on power grids just to accommodate the added load of charging those millions of EVs that have been mandated by Biden, Justin Trudeau, the EU and other globalist elites over the past 5 years.
Where’s all that money going to come from? All these countries enacting these mandates are already heavily in debt – in the US, our federal debt already exceeds our annual GDP, and rises by tens of billions of dollars every day.
Well, that money won’t be coming from the EV industry or its drivers, that’s for sure. While gas car drivers must foot the bill for state and federal gasoline taxes, EV drivers get a free pass even though their cars are creating far more wear and tear on our roads and bridges the gas tax helps pay to maintain and repair.
So, what’s the real cost of this subsidized energy transition going to be at the end of the day? One study recently tossed the number of $275 trillion, and it didn’t even consider all the factors listed above. So, what will the real number be – $400 trillion? $500 trillion? Will inflation and currency devaluation have us talking in terms of quadrillions soon? Don’t laugh – that’s coming, too, and sooner than you think.
Globalist policymakers who push this subsidized, centrally-planned transition love to talk about sustainability. Yet, it is painfully obvious that no aspect of this quest to force a transition to EVs is truly sustainable in any real way. It’s a plan that is destined to fail, and the cost is going to be ruinous.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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