Roper: Don’t use the cars we’re forcing you to buy!

By Rob Roper

Two things are happening this week. Vermont is preparing to sign onto the California Clean Cars II program, which will phase out and ultimately ban internal combustion engine vehicle sales by 2035, requiring that 100% of new cars sold be Zero Emission Vehicles. And Vermont electric utilities are asking Vermonters not to charge their electric cars so as not to overload our electrical grid during the current heatwave.

Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development

If the charging needs of 5,000 EVs can overwhelm the electric grid during a week of July weather, what do these people think 42,000 of such vehicles will do? Even on a nice fall day? And then, 170,000 of them?

There are only about 5,000 electric vehicles on Vermont roads today, and the grid can’t handle charging them all during a week of high but not unprecedented summer heat.

The Climate Action Plan put forward by the Climate Council under the Global Warming Solutions Act passed by the legislature calls for increasing the number of EVs on Vermont roads from that 5,000 to 42,000 by 2025 — that’s just three years away — and to 170,000 by 2030.

Does anyone else see a problem here?

If the charging needs of 5,000 EVs can overwhelm the electric grid during a week of July weather, what do these people think 42,000 of such vehicles will do? Even on a nice fall day? And then, 170,000 of them? Plus at the same time they’re pushing us to change out our oil and gas furnaces for electric heat pumps, etc. and so on?

Is there a plan in place to increase energy production and build up the grid by 2025 to accommodate the explosion of electricity demand they are orchestrating? No. There is not.

I don’t want to be harsh, but this is unbelievably stupid and callously dangerous.

These people believe that due to climate change we are all going to be facing more extreme temperatures (hotter hots and colder colds) and their “solution” is forcing us to adopt technologies, like EVs, heat pumps, wind and solar electric generation, that either become increasingly unreliable or don’t work at all as weather conditions become more extreme.

You can’t make this up.

It’s a self-inflicted policy disaster that is going to get people killed — overheating in summer, freezing in winter, and not being able to escape extreme conditions because you can’t charge the car the government forced you to buy.

The Vermont Climate Council has scheduled a series of public meetings to discuss these policies. Plan to participate and give them an earful.

Schedule – In-person, 6:00-8:00pm, doors open at 5:30pm for tabling and food

Sept. 7 – Manchester Park House
Sept. 8 – Newport Gateway Center
Sept. 14 – Burlington Old North End Community Center
Sept. 15 – Bellows Falls Lower Theatre
Sept. 22 – Barre Alumni Hall
Sept. 23 – Virtual, noon

Rob Roper is on the board of directors for the Ethan Allen Institute.

Image courtesy of Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development

12 thoughts on “Roper: Don’t use the cars we’re forcing you to buy!

  1. Rob, it appears you can make this up. I have an electric vehicle and I was not asked to stop charging it, I cannot find any evidence that the grid cannot handle electric vehicle charging. Can you show me which Vermont utility is unable to charge all the electric cars in the state?

    • We purchased a Prius Prime hybrid/ plug in and were sent a notice from GNMTPW that they wanted to regulate at what time and how long we recharge, offering us an incentive of “Rate 72” to do so. They would monitor thru our “smart meter” (which I don’t have). I threw out the notice ! I already send them power through my solar system. I don’t care to have any entity in my lines and controlling my usage after bowing to their demands of curly bulbs( now LEDs) Heat pumps and efficient appliances(twice). I am still forced to pay $20+ in “energy efficiency “charges per month.

    • Hi Sean. Both the Vermont Electric Co-Op and Burlington Electric issued press releases during the recent heat wave (others may have also, but those are the two I saw) urging their customers not to overwhelm the grid during the recent heatwave in their “beat the peak” campaigns. From the VEC 7/19/22 release, “Members who have electric vehicles can have a large impact by not charging…” In the original version of this post on the Ethan Allen Institute website, the link to this release was included in the text.

      As for the overall Climate Action Plan’s proposal to increase the number of EVs from 5000 to 42,000 over the next three years, if you’ve been paying attention to the Climate Council meetings, even they admit that the electricity generation necessary for this does not currently exist, nor is there any plan in place or funding source identified to create it.

      So…. pretty dumb!

  2. And what happens to these cars a few years down the road? A couple bought their 17 year old daughter a used EV for $11,000. Six months later the battery died.and it turned out the battery would cost $14000 IF it were available which it wasn’t. So we’ll see the life of these vehicles be much shorter than gas vehicles because who will buy them used with that risk?

  3. Oh pleeeeez ! Stop lying to me. Zero-emission vehicle. This definition deliberately misleading. The act of owning (and indeed using) a ZEV is not ZERO. Buttigieg can hype electric cars all he wants, but they will do little to help until all the electric generating stations are upgraded to massive solar and wind farms. What will happen to the environment when we increase mining of rare earth metals for wind machines or have to start disposing of millions of worn-out solar panels and car batteries. The costs for this transition will be excruciating.

  4. Germany has become the poster child of what not to do regarding electricity generation

    It has the highest household electric rates BY FAR, and it has high inflation, and people are not allowed to shower, except on certain times of the day, and they will be freezing this winter, because they did not listen to, and laughed at, Trump more than 4 years ago.

    Italy, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, etc., have millions of protesting people in the streets.

    Conditions in Europe will become far worse, because it lost the very lucrative Russian luxury market, lost the tourist market, and lost easy access to low-cost coal, oil, and gas from Russia, plus is has to increase defense spending

  5. I’ll go looking at EVs, when the state is using electric snow plows, and ever member of state government is driving an EV.

  6. If and I say if these, EVs are so great then why does the Government have to throw
    $6- $12K incentive to purchase them ?? and why isn’t the government setting the
    precedent and start using them in their fleet ??

    They are forcing us, but not themselves what hypocrites, and they know we have no
    electrical infrastructure to support the millions they want people to purchase, solar and
    wind will not cut it, if they ever do have enough power, it will come from oil or coal making
    the power… they just don’t get it ……………..Idiots!!

    It looks like about 1-2% have purchased these EVs, with the 81 million that voted for
    feckless Joe and the green new deal, come on buy them up, help save the world, sure
    you are, don’t buy the extended warranty, AOC has us hovering around six more years
    before the world explodes all from your gas vehicles……….How do you sleep at night !!

    I think there is a place in our society for them, just like scooters & mopeds, but let me know
    when you have an EV that is 100% American, that includes the battery, and maybe then I’ll
    entertain the idea of buying one ……………………………Nah !!

  7. You can’t fix stupid, but stupid people can legislate stupid ideas and stupid voters will vote for them. That seems to be the problem with Vermont. The earth is 4.5 billion years old and has withstood all kinds of weather patterns, sun spots, horrific storms and has been warming since the dawn of time and these brainiacs running the legislature think they can change the climate. Like I said, you can’t fix stupid or maybe it’s about the payoffs from the tons of printed government money that will flow to the cult faithful. I say printe money because it’s just paper with no value and the country is heavily in debt by $33 trillion dollars. There’s no reason for anyone to believe that Vermont can do anything but punish people into 3rd world status while others reap the rewards of the green energy scam. A horse and buggy would be more dependable than an EV. At least you could travel when you wanted to and get their almost as fast. Vote like your life depends on it, because it does.

  8. Ah yes, the Marxist pipe dream that doesn’t wormlike all their other demented schemes.

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