August 2018 Plug-In Electric Vehicle Sales Report Card

[ffr]

How about exceeding a 100-percent year-over-year increase for August 2018 plug-in EV sales?

While July fell marginally short of our estimate of 30K plug-in electric vehicles sold, it was still another promising month for the segment. Historically, July sales have failed to surpass that of June, primarily due to the fact that June is the end of the quarter. With that being said, August deliveries have always exceeded July’s numbers and we’re very confident that this August will follow suit. It’s already on top of our all-time sales list and the reporting is not yet complete.

Top Months for U.S. EV Sales to Date (estimated):

August 2018 – 36,045 (and counting!)
July 2018 – 29,514
March 2018 – 26,373
December 2017 – 26,107
June 2018 – 25,019

As the end of July came to a close, an estimated 153,666 plug-in electric vehicles had been sold in the U.S. While we’ve passed the halfway point for the year, the five remaining months should show accelerated progress. We may finally be at the point that we can confidently say 2018 will eclipse the 300K-mark...
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- InsideEVS

[byronius]

1. Great post.

[NNadir]

2. There are almost 1 billion cars on this planet.

If we make 1,200,000 electric cars per year, what does it mean? Anything?

What is always missing in these kinds of discussions, whether involves wind energy, or solar energy, or any other useless if popular affectation about delusional ersatz environmentalism is a sense of scale.

A battery is a device that, according to the second law of thermodynamics, which all of the daydreaming in the world cannot reverse, wastes energy. Making more batteries means it is necessary to waste more energy, and that's not even including the external costs of making batteries. How different is methyl ethyl ketone from MTBE?

The air pollution mortality for charging electric cars can be, and often is, worse than gasoline cars.

The car CULTure is not sustainable in any shape, way or form. Given the well known toxicology associated with batteries - well understood in the primary scientific literature if not by the general public which appears to misapprehend that this cockamamie scheme is a good thing, even if it isn't - this electric car fad has nothing to do with environmentalism, although it does have a lot to do with the way people lie to themselves.

As of 2018, after more than half a century of jawboning about stuff that did not work, is not working, and will not work, we remain clueless.

We hit 411 ppm of carbon dioxide this year. If we want to know why, we need to look in the mirror, because we worship stuff like this.

[Finishline42]

3. Jumping up and down again?

Interesting term that you use for describing how inefficient a battery powered car is. While EVERY machine wastes some portion of the energy consumed, EV's are multiple times more efficient in their use of energy than either a gas or diesel power car. And there's one thing I can do with an EV that I can't do with either gas or diesel - I can own my own power source in form of PV panels on my house.

From Wiki:

Internal combustion engines have thermodynamic limits on efficiency, expressed as fraction of energy used to propel the vehicle compared to energy produced by burning fuel. Gasoline engines effectively use only 15% of the fuel energy content to move the vehicle or to power accessories, and diesel engines can reach on-board efficiency of 20%, while electric vehicles have on-board efficiency of over 90%, when counted against stored chemical energy, or around 80%, when counted against required energy to recharge.[62]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car

While the numbers worldwide are insignificant they were non-existent 10 years ago. China and Canada had 2017 sales of over 100% increase over 2016.

But not only are EV's more efficient in their energy usage they also have fewer maintenance problems - no oil changes - reduced brake wear, etc.

[hunter]

4. You know what's better than electric cars? No cars.

We ought to be restructuring our cities and suburbs and society in general such that car ownership is not only unnecessary for most people, but undesirable.

By some planning and greater good fortune my wife and I have mostly avoided the typical car commuter lifestyle since the mid 'eighties, but haven't been able to abandon automobile ownership.

I drive $800 cars (yes they do pass California smog tests) because I'm cheap, but also to express my disdain for car culture. I bought a new car once when I was young and thought myself hot stuff, but I'll never do that again.

If someone gave me a Tesla I'd give it away like a hot potato to someone who cares.

One of my nephews lives in San Francisco and hasn't owned a car for a long time, partly because it's too expensive to park a car there, partly because it's so easy now for him to rent one when he's traveling outside the city.

Unfortunately nobody's going to get elected these days by promising to shrink the automobile industry.

Cars are sacred.

[progree]

5. All's I see are people replacing their cars with SUVs and pickup trucks

in some sort of a gonads - size contest. Nationally, more SUVs and pickup trucks are sold than regular cars, and that trend is increasing. And I hear all the fucking air conditioners going on around me in my townhouse complex when it's one degree above perfect.

The reality of the situation is that most people just don't give a fat fuck.

[hunter]

6. I attribute this to advertising.

Sports Utility Vehicles and pickup trucks are more profitable than boring, high mileage passenger cars, for both the automobile manufactures and the fuel companies.

The advertising isn't subtle, if you buy a truck or SUV you'll be powerful.

The ultimate environmental abomination are giant trucks and SUVs that can run on E-85.

Fields of corn used to make ethanol are environmental wastelands. The runoff from these farms is hazardous to river, lake, and ocean ecosystems.

[Finishline42]

8. There are a couple of functional reasons people are going for SUV's

There are a couple of functional reasons people buy SUV's:

Families that haul around a bunch of children.

Once you drive/ride in one a lot of people don't want to go back to a sedan. The view of the road being another foot or so higher is a safety issue, of course for everyone in a sedan you end up blocking their view.

We get suckered periodically with periods of low gas prices then when prices go back above $3.00 people recognize the financial hole they put themselves in.

And you're right about one thing - if you're making big bucks how much does it matter if your gasoline costs you $300 or $400 a month?

[ffr]

7. Good for you and your wife, Hunter!

I'm with you. Can a democracy get elected officials to do such forward thinking though? Certainly not live-for-today Republicans, as we're seeing by the complete corruption and takeover across the nation.

Every time I look at an ICE vehicle, all I see in my head are dinosaur fossils. The automobile and more directly, air conditioning and refrigeration will be our downfall. The two have combined to make human existence relatively easy. Take both out of the equation and our numbers would plummet back to sustainable levels.