Issue 31

 

Examples of the Media Bias Against EVs
(Big media and small media)

(NOT CLICKABLE)

CNBC's video "news" piece talks about EV batteries, and how they will one day not be suitable any longer to power that EV. But they blow the problem way out of proportion. In fact, it's not a problem at all, and yet they use the word "problem" in their title. Another example of the media misleading the public, trying to dissuade the public from buying EVs.

It's not a problem for a few reasons:

1) LIFESPAN: The battery pack of today's modern EV can usually last the life of the vehicle (as long as you don't "floor it" every time the light turns green). Tesla for example has been able to get 10 years out of their battery packs, and this was batteries made with chemistries from 10 years ago; today's battery chemistries will last even longer.

2) REUSE: When an EV battery pack no longer has enough capacity to run a car (your range has diminished to a point where the car is now impractical to drive), that same battery pack can be repurposed into other equipment, like home energy battery packs.

3) RECYCLING: When a lithium-ion battery pack has reached its end-of-life, it can be recycled. When comparing vehicle fuels (electricity vs gasoline) you can't say the same for gasoline... once it's burned, it's literally gone. Yes, the fuel tank is still there, but there's nothing to recycle. All components in a lithium-ion battery pack can be recycled. All the lithium, nickel, copper, etc. All. And of course, the structural pack housing itself can be outfitted with new batteries... batteries potentially made with recycled materials! And the recycling process is not "dirty". In-other-words, you won't see environmentalists protesting battery recycling plants. And this ability to recycle batteries will mean less mining in the future. With gasoline, there must always be increases in drilling for more oil... often at a cost to the environment.

So, where's the problem? It's actually a made up problem meant to slow the sales of EVs. Why? Very powerful entities hate EVs (think the fossil fuel industry and the automotive industry who both stand to lose lots of money because of this unstoppable transition to EVs).

So in reality, EV's biggest problem is the media. So don't let the very biased media BS you. In fact, stop watching them, because they BS you about many other things... things that can have a huge impact on your health (but make certain industries lots of money due to your increased ill health).

 

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Another Example of the Media Bias Against EVs

The following headline in Business Insider (a very biased publication) is false.
The opposite is true. But there's no law against lying. And who's going to sue them?
There is no American Association of EVs.
So BI is trying to manufacture public opinion... to turn off the public to EVs.
A little research will uncover:
A very good MPG of a gas-powered car: 32 MPG
A very good MPGe of an EV: 124 MPGe
But that doesn't even take into account the cost per unit of energy of gas and electricity.
In another apples-to-apples comparison, this time of unit of energy,
electricity is less expensive than gasoline per BTU!
So, take the much higher efficiency + lower cost of EV fuel, and EVs win, hands down.

Now for some actual facts...

 

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Another example of the media
attempting to smear Tesla

TopSpeed's question to themselves: "How do we make Tesla look worse than their competitors because their competitors give us money for ads and Tesla does not". And what's the definition of "better"? If you go by what consumers are most concerned with when looking at EVs, it would have to do with the following (ranked in order of importance)...

Range: Most of those other 10 vehicles don't have better range than the Tesla Model S; some have half the range of the S... so they're not "better".

Too expensive: Nine of those 10 vehicles are either the same or more expensive than a Model S, and the one that is less expensive is a Tesla Model 3 (but it's not in the same class as the S and those others)

No place to charge: Teslas have their own public charging network, the other 9 do not

Battery life: Tesla batteries are the best in the industry; they don't skimp on quality here

Reliability: Tesla's are ranked as one of the most reliable EVs, better than the other 9

And if those other nine EVs are supposedly better than the Model S, why are their sales way lower than Model S. In fact, if you add up all the year-to-date sales of those other nine, their total sales is less than Model S year-to-date sales!

So, nice try TopSpeed, but if consumers do a little research, they'll realize you're trying to mislead them (and that research would include articles like this one from me or from one of the many other unbiased, objective news outlets).

 

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"Tesla crashes into home,
almost killing the homeowner"

ANCHOR: "New at 10, a Northwest Indiana homeowner says if he had been in the basement when a Tesla crashed into his home, he has no doubt he would have died. The car landed on his couch where he usually sits."

Notice the "lower third" says, "TESLA CRASHES INTO HOME", and not, "CAR CRASHES INTO HOME", as it would if it was any other vehicle (especially if it was an advertiser's car). Media takes the opportunity to bash Tesla whenever they can. Why? Tesla gives them zero dollars for ads, and Tesla's competitors and Big Oil give them many millions of dollars for ads. It's that simple.

And of course there was video of the car being pulled out of the home, with the name "Tesla" mentioned many times throughout the segment. And when the name of a car is mentioned instead of simply the word "car", and mentioned that many times, there's an agenda.

Not until the segment was almost over was it revealed that the car was being driven by a teenager who was drunk (and was arrested). It would have been nice if the story led with this fact, but the editor wanted to give the impression that it was the car's fault. This kind of manipulation is done all the time. Even the homeowner said, on camera, "The Tesla landed on my LazyBoy." Was he coached to say this? I've seen it done.

 

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Newspapers too

The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos (of Amazon fame).
Jeff Bezos hates Elon Musk because Bezos' Blue Origin rocket company
has consistently lost NASA contracts to Musk's SpaceX company.
And maybe also because Musk has said (deservedly) derogatory things about Bezos.
So it's no wonder that the Washington Post prints articles that misrepresent Musk and Tesla.

This article contains multiple misrepresentations of Tesla's self-driving vehicle features. It attempts to place the blame for the tragic death of Jeremy Banner on Tesla when the blame actually is shared by the truck driver and Jeremy, who was the driver of the Tesla. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration has already exonerated Tesla, saying their technology was not at fault. This hasn't stopped Banner's family from suing both the trucking company and Tesla. And it's obviously an opportunity for those who hate Musk and Tesla to bash Tesla. So don't be misled by such biased articles.

 

And news reporting agencies too...

 

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And more lies

For many people, intuitively, this headline doesn't make any sense. And in reality, it is incorrect. Did that study look at EV environmental impact on balance, all things considered? No. They cherry-picked data and misrepresented info. Why? Because if they did the study properly, EVs would win over cars with tailpipes. There are lots of very powerful entities who do not want to see EVs displace gas-powered cars because they will lose lots of money, so they commission "loaded" studies (a study whose conclusion is predetermined) to discredit EVs to turn people off to buying them. I'd like to say that you can easily find the info that debunks these well-publicized studies, but you can't, at least not easily. The Wall Street Journal published that BS study, but will not publish the debunking of that so-called study. The WSJ is very anti EV, and anti Tesla (and anti Elon Musk). Want a piece of evidence that debunks the so-called study? The study states that EV brake dust contributed to the pollution problem, but that's not possible, because EVs hardly ever use their brakes. When you want to slow down an EV, just back off on the throttle pedal and "regenerative braking" will slow the EV down, even to a stop... no mechanical braking needed.

 

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An example of misinformation
due to greed and political biases

 

Eric Peters was on the Tom Woods Podcast, and he is not bringing to light "the realities of EVs" as the promo for the podcast suggests. It's just more BS. Peters is wrong about many of things he stated (stated as if they were established fact). And the reason he is saying these inaccurate things will become clear in a moment.

Peters and Woods believe the federal mandate for all small passenger cars to get 58 MPG by 2032 is being done by evil people who simply want to make life more difficult for the masses. He lumped pickup trucks in there, but they are not required to get 58 MPG. Both Peters and Woods believe that this is being done to "torture" the working class. And Peters and Woods agree that an all-EV fleet will make it more difficult for people to be able to afford buying a car, and this is part of the evil-doers plot (which includes the current federal administration). But here too the opposite is true. Soon Tesla will be coming out with a $25,000 compact car, and with the evil Federal EV rebate, that car will cost $17,500 making it the least expensive car to buy in the US in 35 years (and the lowest cost one to maintain and operate), and the safest car. Damn those evil-doers.

Re: EV fires. Peters is wrong on this count too. EVs catch on fire 25 for every 100,000 EVs sold, and gasoline cars catch on fire 1,530 for every 100,000. So EVs are safer than gas cars when it comes to fires. And the fires that EVs do have can be reduced if the auto regulators would enact regulation that mandated that EV makers stop using cheap crap battery cells (to increase their profit margins). But I think as libertarians, Peters and Woods are against regulations. Teslas proved that the good cells don't catch fire spontaneously, and only catch on fire when there is an accident that manages to damage the battery pack to the point of causing a fire (and a slow-to-start fire, no explosions). And if the car has a "structural battery pack" like Teslas do, the odds of that happening are reduced almost to zero. So contrary to what Peters is saying, there is no "built-in inherent fire risk" to EVs. If any type of car has a built-in inherent risk of fire, it's a vehicle that carries around a tankful of highly combustible liquid fuel that can leak in an accident and where sparks can be made in that accident. NOTE: Yes, there have been EVs that caught fire just sitting there, and this burned down a few people's homes, but these were Chevy Bolts that had defective battery packs, and it wasn't a lot of them, but enough to tarnish the brand "Bolt" (and Big Oil made sure that this was blown up out of proportion). And they were cheaply made battery packs done to pinch pennies. Tesla uses non penny pinching battery cells. Does Peters mention this? No. And for good reason.

And Peters loves hybrids. Does he know that they catch on fire 3,474 for every 100,000 hybrids... more than gas cars! And they require more repair work because they have both a gasoline system (engine, exhaust system, etc) and an EV battery system. Now that we have EVs, sales of hybrids in Europe are falling fast, and understandably so. They are less safe than EVs and cost more from a Total Cost of Ownership perspective (more on TCO in a moment).

And Peters' "the cold is very bad for an EV" argument is blown way out of proportion. How much range loss occurs in cold weather has more to do with the design of the EV than anything else. Teslas do best in the cold, which proves that the technology exists to minimize the effects of cold weather, but the legacy automakers don't want to spend the money to address this (because they're already losing thousands of dollars on every EV they sell because of the poor economies of small scale). NOTE: Many people who live in cold climates have Teslas, and are not complaining. There are 5 million Teslas on the roads, and some in very cold places like Norway where 90% of new car sales are EVs, and 65% of them are Teslas. Peters should talk to them, but he won't because what he will discover will go against his preferred narrative.

And Peters blames the glut of EVs sitting around on dealer lots, not "moving", on the "fact" that EVs are horrible cars. Wrong again. As the buying public becomes more aware of the differences between EVs, and that Teslas are far better than the EVs from other automakers, the sales of Teslas go up, and therefore the sales of other EVs go down. And that is what's happening. And isn't this what libertarians like Peters and Woods advocate: a market driven economy? Not in Peter's case... I'll get to why in a moment.

And Peters misrepresents EV public charging (which supports my belief that he has ulterior motives for bashing EVs, because this talking point is easily debunked). And he goes so far as to misrepresent home charging!!! He says that since it will take 10 hours to recharge your vehicle, "think about what a limitation that will be on people's mobility...they're going to have to plan their lives around these endless recharge sessions". Is he kidding? This is pure scare tactics. The millions of Tesla owners who charge at home would laugh themselves silly hearing this talking point (a fossil fuel industry talking point by-the-way). FACT: When you get home from work, your EV should still have plenty of charge left to go back out to do some errands or to pick up the kids. And as to taking 10 hours to do a full "fill up", first, that would be from a very low "state of charge" level, which most people don't get to with day-to-day driving. And second, so what if it does take 10 hours! You're going to be sleeping during that time. Can a person like Peters be that uneducated? No. He is head of Eric Peters Autos, and all companies who make money from the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles hate EVs, Peters included. So as a businessperson, he must do his part to slow the adoption of EVs, even if it means lying to the general public, which is what he is doing (because he can't be so stupid as to believe the things he is saying).

And come on! Saying that people's "casual environmentalism will go out the window when they discover just how expensive EVs are to buy"! What about the notion of taking into consideration all the costs of owning a car? When people buy a car – any kind of car – they shouldn't just look at the sticker price, they should look at the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This is a real thing (it's got its own acronym), and when you compare the TCO of gasoline cars to EVs, it's no contest... EVs win handily. So Peters and Woods are spreading FUD (Fear Uncertainty Disinformation). Whether they are shills for Big Oil, or have allowed their political positions to cloud their judgment, or are just woefully miseducated, or have hidden agendas, them believing the Big Oil talking points created to slow the transition to EVs (because each EV sold hurts Big Oil's profits) calls into question the veracity of this podcast. The info both are spreading is inaccurate, and since this can cause some people to not buy an EV and get a new gasoline-powered car instead, Peters and Woods should be charged with crimes against the people. Why? With each new gas car sold instead of an EV, there will be more CO2 added to the atmosphere, more PM2.5 particles added to the environment increasing air pollution, and if the comparison is a gas car instead of a Tesla, more people will be at risk of injury or death (fact). So talk about endangering human beings! But they would likely defend their right of freedom of speech, but that right doesn't protect saying inaccurate things that can cause people's premature death.

And Peter's misrepresents the Nation's power grid as not being able to support all this proposed EV growth. Again, more self-serving misinformation. Yes, today's grid won't support the number of EVs likely to be on the road in 2030, but 2030's grid will be able to handle it just fine. The power utility companies are improving the grid as we speak (they've heard of EVs), and they have been for a while now, in anticipation of the likely growing EV demand. And keep in mind that the majority of EVs will charge during off-peak times, when there is plenty of electrical supply available. Does Peter's mention this factoid? No. And he is trying to scare the environmentalists and put them off EVs by saying that we will have to build more coal-fired power plants to supply an EV fleet. Again, lies.

And saying that people (Woods' listeners) don't want EVs because they don't want their car spying on them and data-mining them, is ridiculous. Yes, I'm sure that there are people who are suspicious of entities like Facebook and Google who no doubt data-mine, but to not buy the safest vehicle made in the world today, and the one with the lowest TCO for fear of it spying on you is just plain paranoia. I've taken steps to keep my phone from data-mining, and also with my personal computer because I am aware of what's going on in the world, but I am not concerned that a Tesla vehicle will spy on me. And what stops any of the modern gasoline-powered cars from doing that? Nothing. So, more FUD on Peters' part.

And comparing the government's push to EVs over ICE cars to the vaccine mandates is horrendous journalism on Woods' part. Apples-to-oranges, yet he makes this comparison due to his political agenda. I am of the libertarian mindset, but I will never listen to Woods' podcast again because he has demonstrated biases, and I don't tolerate that from a journalist (a so-called journalist in this case).

At one point, Woods played, as he said, "devil's advocate" and mentioned to his guest what an EV owner said about charging and how it wasn't an issue either at home or on a long trip, and Peters dared to say that these truthful statements (presented as empirical evidence) were "disingenuous". Peters is one of the most self-serving people I've ever listened to, and after 17 minutes of listening to him, I'm finding it very difficult to continue listening because of what I know to be true, and because I know that there will be people listening to this podcast who don't know what I know, and who will be influenced by Peters' BS and not buy an EV when buying their next new car, and I've already described the consequences of this scenario.

Keep in mind the click-baity title of this podcast's episode, "Another Step Toward Banning Gas-Powered Cars". The host has politically motivated biases against EVs, and the guest has motives of self-interest (and possibly also politically motivated biases). So do your due diligence, and don't take what these two people say as the Gospel truth... because it isn't anything close to it.

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