Electric Vehicles (EVs) are much less popular than many politicians and their subsidized EV-maker friends anticipated. This reality might be attributable to numerous factors, including the steep cost, the unworkability, the dangers to the environment represented by both the acquisition of minerals for the batteries and the disposal of spent batteries filled with toxic chemicals, or the fact that charging the EVs, aging of the EVs and EV exposure to certain environmental conditions can push the charging systems and batteries to ignite in hellish flame that is very hard to extinguish.
Perhaps that’s a metaphor for the love of aggressive leftists -- a pyre that’s hard to put out, and hazardous to your well-being.
Of course, the unworkability, expense, and danger of EVs haven’t stopped the Biden Administration from pushing our tax cash into their ever-growing EV sinkhole, whether we like it or not. And it seems as if some EV purchasers have disregarded numerous longer-standing and recent warnings about that big fire problem, because, as Weather.com reports:
“Some electric vehicles in Florida are bursting into flames after coming into contact with saltwater. Residual saltwater particles left behind on flooded batteries and battery components can conduct electricity, resulting in short circuits and eventual fires. Safety officials are urging EV owners with vehicles that flooded to take action now as fires can ignite weeks after flooding.”
Of course, this phenomenon is not some fringe urban legend akin to spontaneous human combustion. It’s not like the “exploding drummer” problem of the fictitious band Spinal Tap, and it isn’t like the phenomenon described in the movie “Repo Man,” where a government official claimed, “It happens sometimes. People just explode.”
This is predictable and comprehensible, due to the nature of electric vehicles and the conductivity of salt water.
And, as Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw writes, it’s not as if the EV owners didn’t have the chance to get the info:
“Owners were being warned to move their EVs at least fifty feet away from any structure. That’s how serious of a fireball can be created. Authorities said that the fires don’t happen immediately, but tend to break out several days or even up to two weeks later. Apparently, as the salt water dries up it can leave behind a trail of salt that can form a ‘bridge’ between the terminals of the EV’s batteries. And if that causes the electricity to arc across, your battery is burning and you’re off to the races.”
And, by “off to the races,” one can infer, “off to a blaze that will burn incredibly hot, resist being extinguished, and could restart to require more emergency attention.”
This is a problem for numerous battery-based fires, and people around the world, working in many different fields, have come to recognize the dangers of the batteries.
As the Institute for Energy Research observes:
“Not only are there more fires due to lithium-ion batteries in E-bikes and in electric vehicles, but they are far more intense and difficult to put out than other fires, burning with an energy that is twice that of a normal fire. The New York Fire Department recently reported that so far this year there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13. And, last year there were more than 200 fires from batteries in e-bikes, electric vehicles and other devices. The fire commissioner warned New Yorkers that such devices typically explode in such a way that renders escape impossible. Further, in just three years, lithium-ion battery fires have surpassed those started by cooking and smoking as the most common causes of fatal fires in New York City.”
But, again, the politicians who steal our money, free will, and opportunities to decide where we might invest – those politicians blithely overlook this reality. Joe Biden just announced another move to burn over $12 billion of our cash (and that of our progeny, since the US is $30 trillion in debt), even AS the electric vehicles were bursting into flames in Florida.
Is it too late to ask for our money back? Oh, that’s right…we had, and HAVE, no choice - which is one of the key differences between the market sphere and the political realm.
In the market, each of us has volition and risks only our own time, energy, capital, and options. If we make a mistake by investing in something that doesn’t perform, or a product that is a dud or worse, not only can we adjust and avoid that product or investment in our future choices, others can learn from our mistakes and change their behavior. We even can sue if we have been defrauded or harmed in some other way.
But government not only doesn’t let us choose at the outset, it disconnects each “buyer” (forced-to-buy taxpayer) from the results. We often don’t get to see the mistakes or feel the troubles that the spending of our tax money has created for others.
And it isn’t just the owners of the EVs who run into trouble when they make the dumb decision to buy the subsidized, politically promoted rigs. These fires harm many others, which is why many of us who are aware of the EV dangers are beginning to avoid parking near them, and why many private parking garage owners are banning them.
“One hazard in lithium-ion batteries is “thermal runaway” — a rapid and unstoppable increase in temperature leading to fires in electric vehicles that are hard to extinguish and can spontaneously reignite. Fire extinguishing systems on ships that haul cars were not designed for the hotter fires. Recent fire-related losses are resulting in increased insurance costs for automakers shipping cargo and costs are also likely to increase for vessel owners. As such, automakers are buying additional liability protection.”
Taxpayers who are directly harmed by the taxation cannot stop paying. And, in most cases, those innocent bystanders whose lives or property have been damaged by these pyrotechnic EVs cannot cite the government in court. In most cases, government claims “sovereign immunity” or “limited liability” against claims made by people who might have been harmed by dangerous political policies and “investments.”
Related: More States To Follow CA’s Ban On Gas-Powered Cars | MRCTV
As I mentioned last week, the term “investment” connotes free will on the part of the “investor,” not coercion and extortion and threats – which are the tools of government. And if we have free will, we can stay out of risky ventures, so that we aren’t harming ourselves or are not culpable for harm brought to others.
When government gets involved, it implicates all of us.
That’s the Tragedy of the Commons, forcing us to pay for what the politicians ignorantly call “the future” even as they use spurious “climate” fearmongering to push their favoritism for certain industries and manipulation of the market. Like the owners of the private parking garages, we should be free to disconnect from their electric car future. But Biden and numerous state-level politicians want to force us not only to subsidize their fire-hazard EV boondoggles, but to force away our choices of regular cars to buy.
Yes, we are being “burned” – figuratively, and, for many, literally – by the hubristic elitists who think they know better than we do how to live our own lives.