The DIRTY Truth About Electric Cars: 6 Reasons NOT To Buy One

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While I was writing a previous article, Four Types of Cars Not to Buy, I almost included a section on why you shouldn’t buy an electric car, but I didn’t. Not because I think they are a good idea, but because explaining why turned into an article in of itself. Which is where we find ourselves now.

Ever since dieselgate back in 2015, to save face, politicians have begun pushing electric cars as the saving grace of the future, with some countries even proposing outright bans on Internal Combustion engines by 2025, 2030, 2035, etc… While electric vehicles make a lot of sense for some scenarios, notably as fleet vehicles owned by municipalities, they still don’t make sense for the vast majority of people? So why shouldn’t you buy an electric car? Because at this point in time, they make no sense, both from the perspective of actually owning one, and for the stated goals that policymakers have expressed. These four are the reasons why.

The electric car supply chain is environmentally unfriendly.

While electric cars are simpler than conventional vehicles, in order to run an electric vehicle, batteries of sufficient capacity are needed. These batteries require many different types of minerals to produce; most notably, cobalt, lithium, and nickel.

destroyed rainforest | Rational Motoring
If this is the byproduct of producing an electric vehicle, then doesn’t it kind of defeat the point of them being environmentally friendly?

The sources of these metals? Most cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), lithium from Australia, and nickel from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Other than Australia, most of these nations are located in the tropics. What do these tropical nations also have? Rainforests, aka the biggest carbon sinks in the world.

rainforest
Rainforests absorb more emitted carbon dioxide than any other entity. They have been crucial sources of medicinal plants, and represent important habitats that harbor much of the world’s biodiversity, including many endangered species.

What often happens when companies seek to extract these metals? Deforestation. What does this mining also cause? Extensive soil and groundwater pollution.

Oh yeah, these same forests are the world’s greatest source of biodiversity and many critically endangered species live there, like Orangutans in Indonesia, and Chimpanzees and Gorillas in the DRC, also known as the closest living relatives to us humans. Never mind the fact that rainforests of the world contain many plants with life-saving medicinal properties, and the vast majority of them haven’t even been discovered yet.

And I should also mention, the cobalt that is mined in the Congo and is needed to make these batteries? Yeah, nearly a fifth of the workforce in Congolese cobalt mining operations consists of child labor.

Cobalt mining Congo
Who is working hard to make batteries for your “green” electric car possible? Child laborers in the Congo exposed to toxic chemicals and deprived of the opportunity for an education, that’s who.

Know this. By buying that electric car, you are not solving the problem. In fact, you are making it worse. To make that “clean” looking electric car possible, rainforests in the developing world were destroyed, polluted, and the minerals extracted on the backs of child labor. Yeah, sure, clearing rainforests, polluting the soil and water, destroying the only place endangered species call home, and economically exploiting the developing world like it’s 1885. That will totally save the environment.

Electric Vehicle Batteries are expensive to fix and hard to recycle

Tesla Battery frame
While electric vehicles are mechanically simpler than combustion engine vehicles due to fewer moving parts, they remain more expensive to fix overall.

That I cannot recommend either. Firstly, like hybrids, there is the question of the batteries, which, if you want to own your vehicle long term (and reduce your overall carbon footprint), is a question that will come up. Tesla doesn’t publicly talk about this, and after digging, I realized this is for good reason. An out-of-warranty battery replacement for a Tesla, in general, will cost between $13k and $16k. In comparison, replacing the hybrid batteries on a Toyota Prius costs less than $5k.

Currently, many U.S. households are struggling to make ends meet, and even more than half of people making $100k or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Repairs like this that necessitate replacing the car after less than 10 years? Financially, they are not sound, especially in the day and age of 7-8 year car loans. Esp

I personally believe that if you buy a car that is known to be both reliable and built well, and you take great care of it and do regular maintenance, you can easily make any car last 30 years, even in northern states where the roads are salted and can rust out a car.

Oh, and those batteries that are taken out to be replaced? The dirtiest secret of the electric vehicle industry is that recycling of the depleted batteries, at best, remains intensive in the use of chemicals and unprofitable. This is because most EV batteries weren’t designed with that in mind in the first place, and solutions to change that remain small-scale and in their infancy. In contrast, conventional cars use much more familiar materials, like iron, aluminum, copper, magnesium, and glass. These materials have well developed recycling and reprocessing industries that have demonstrated profitability, and remain important. Lithium-ion Batteries? Not so much.

recharging anything other than a tesla sucks (at least in the U.S.)

EV Charging stations
Go to any non-Tesla charging station, and quality is a complete toss-up. Some chargers wont work with certain vehicles and charging times are all over the place. Oh, and that’s if you can get to one that actually works! Odds are, in a facility like the one shown above, at least one won’t work, and of the ones that do work, they could be taken. With long charging times, that could be hours of waiting.

Currently, the charging infrastructure in the U.S. still leaves a lot to be desired. To put it simply for people that don’t own EVs, think about how clean public bathrooms are in most cities, think about how well roads and bridges are maintained in your area, and the overall state of public infrastructure. That same standard of maintenance is also being applied to the charging infrastructure in the U.S.

The result? Ever try and charge your phone with someone else’s charging cable, forget about it for awhile, and then came back expecting it to be fully charged, but instead, your phone died or was sitting at less than 5%? This is the reality of using public charging infrastructure in the U.S. for owners of EVs that aren’t Teslas as many of the chargers are poorly maintained and barely work at all, requiring extra due diligence on part of the driver. Translation: public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in the U.S. is a joke. You can’t rely on it, and given the current state of ubiquitous car dependent suburbia in the U.S, being able to reliably get more fuel/power is a must to survive.

So public chargers are junk, and being able to find one that actually works the way it is supposed to is a toss-up. That leaves Tesla and their proprietary supercharging network as the most usable option for using an electric vehicle. As of yet, in the U.S, you cannot charge a non-Tesla vehicle at a Tesla supercharger, though that will likely change in the future. For now though, that means if you want to have a somewhat usable electric vehicle, then it’s Tesla or nothing.

Charging Speeds are still too slow

Tesla Supercharger
Tesla Superchargers are the fastest way to charge an electric vehicle…but you can only use them if you own a Tesla. Even using Tesla’s Superchargers, charging an electric car is significantly slower than refueling a conventional combustion car’s fuel tank.

Range anxiety is often dismissed by electric car fanatics, sating that people should instead change their behavior. However, that isn’t always possible. Tesla claims that by using its supercharger stations, 200 miles of range can be added to a Tesla within 15 minutes. This is already significantly faster than other electric cars, which need anywhere from a few hours to half a day to recharge. So Tesla is good to go, right?

Tesla Supercharging time
Image taken from Tesla’s official website.

Not so fast. The range anxiety skeptics bring up a very valid point. To illustrate it, think about the last time you went to a gas station. Typically, you get out of your car, and you are in and out in under 5 minutes. However, let’s use a real-world example, say, another car that is marketed as environmentally friendly, like a 2020 Toyota Prius. The Prius has an 11.3 gallon fuel tank, and assume that you can pump 10 gallons of gasoline into your tank per minute (the standard rate in the U.S. for gas pumps). This means you can fill the tank of the Prius in 67.3 seconds. Using the EPA fuel economy ratings of 58 city/53 highway for a 2020 Prius, this means a typical tank will last between 598.9 and 655.4 miles. To make the math easy, call it 625 miles. For a Prius, you will need approximately 1/10th of a second of time per mile driven to refuel it.

In comparison, according to Tesla’s own figures, you will need 4.5 seconds of time per mile driven to refuel it. In other words, refueling a Tesla takes more than 9 times as long as refueling a conventional gas/electric hybrid. Tesla’s 200 miles in 15 minutes claim is just marketing nonsense that sounds good, but is actually really bad in the big picture of things.

Tesla Destination Charging
If a supercharger isn’t available, then you are stuck with options like this one. And this is one of the BETTER OPTIONS! Image taken from Tesla’s official website.

I believe that time is a most valuable asset. Long charging times can get in the way of you having the freedom you want. I can even imagine in some cases, an uncharged electric vehicle means a man can’t get to the hospital in time, and thus, misses the birth of his first child. Until this charging issue is resolved, range anxiety will remain a legitimate reason to not get an electric car, even a Tesla.

Poor build quality of Teslas

Tesla Build Quality | Rational Motoring
The uneven panel gaps are only the tip of the iceberg

Tesla is currently one of the hottest brands on the market right now. Within the last 10 years, their products have become aspirational status symbols for young, wealthy buyers all over the world. In comparison, other American car brands still present themselves to the public like it is the 1950s. Despite this, I would avoid buying a Tesla at all costs. Why?

I could forgive Tesla and have no hesitation recommending their products if they truly were built better than their competitors, and offered superior value. In that case, the behavioral changes could be justified. But, Tesla suffers the same problem as all other American Automakers: build quality. It’s so bad that in a 2020 J.D. Power survey Tesla ranked DEAD LAST in build quality and reliability among all auto brands. Even Land Rover beat them out, and they are some of the LEAST RELIABLE modern cars you can buy! Which leads us into our next issue.

Tesla’s strong stance against consumer rights

But wait, there’s more! So what happens when your car that has build quality breaks (as it would), and you want to save some money on the massive repair bills by either fixing it yourself or going to an independent mechanic you trust?

Chipped Bumper Model 3 Tesla | Rational Motoring
According to the YouTuber this car belongs to, to fix this small rock chip cost $1,500 dollars. Oh, and it was cheaper to replace the whole bumper than to fix it. Because that’s SO ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY to throw it away instead. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

According to Tesla, you may as well jump off a cliff, as they always insist that you go to them to repair the car. And just like getting your car fixed by a dealer, that means repairs are EXPENSIVE, and body damage is the most notorious offender. I hope you have good insurance, because if you are in a crash with your Tesla, expect to pay TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to have it fixed.

To add insult to injury, once the repairs get started on your Tesla, it’s a premium product, so it at least paying all that money means you get your car back quickly, right? WRONG! It is not uncommon for owners to report that they got their Tesla back MONTHS later, in some cases, a year. A 1-2 week turnaround time? Understandable. 4-6 months? Unacceptable.

This is because Tesla has fought efforts to make replacement parts, schematics, or services manuals available for purchase by the general public; part of the bigger fight by Tesla against “Right to Repair” initiatives. So not only is your Tesla unreliable, but going to your own mechanic or doing DIY repairs is more difficult than a normal car, all because Tesla values its profits more than its products, and insists on maintaining control at all costs.

Oh, and speaking of control, Tesla has demonstrated they are much more interested in maintaining total control over the vehicle you bought instead of the customer’s well being.

Firstly, your Tesla is watching you. The main camera in the rear-view mirror assembly, according to a the details of a Tesla software update last year, will be used “to determine driver inattentiveness.” Translation: it’s always on, watching your every move. What is Tesla doing with that data? Irrespective of what they say, it is not implausible to wonder if they are selling it behind the scenes to the highest bidding third parties. After all, the goal of any company is to make money, and the cost of distribution for data like this is practically nothing. Translation: free money.

Tesla vehicle policy | Rational Motoring
Tesla not only controls the repairs, but whether or not you your vehicle will get repaired at all. Welcome to the future.

Secondly, that supercharger network that makes owning a Tesla so attractive relative to other electric cars? Yeah, they can shut you out of accessing that at any time, without reason. They long held the practice of disabling access to the supercharger network to cars that weren’t repaired through them, though that was backtracked after public pressure (link here). Nonetheless, according to them, “Tesla reserves the right to deactivate Supercharging capability on any vehicle we believe would be unsafe.” Yeah, removing access to the best feature of owning a Tesla compared to other electric cars because someone repaired an insurance write-off vehicle and didn’t buy a new Tesla like Daddy Elon wanted them to? Sure, that sounds great for the environment, do go on about how sustainably minded and trendy you are… NOT!

Tesla Model X Seats | Rational Motoring
Prostate yourselves before Elon and beg for forgiveness because that’s the only way you may have even a hope of being able to adjust your seats as much as your want

But wait, it gets even more bizarre than this. Some new Teslas even restrict you from adjusting your seat more than what Daddy Elon says is okay. This means, if you adjust the seat “too much” you will receive a warning to stop, and then, if you don’t follow it, you will get notified that the adjustment controls on your ADJUSTABLE SEAT have been disabled. (link here) Why? Because Tesla wanted to save a few cents, cheap out, and not build an electric seat adjustment motor that would last (again inconsistent build quality).

The more I think about this and try to wrap my head around it, the more messed up it seems. How much of a power trip do you have to be on to put into the software running your product guidelines for how much seat adjustment is “excessive” and disable the controls if that is exceeded?

Elon Tweeting
Does Elon Musk really your money at this point? Absolutely not, but it isn’t about that anymore.

Feeding into Elon Musk’s god complex so he can tweet and make some stock’s price go nuts just so you can feel “trendy” and “with it” in your Tesla? Pass. Rational Motoring believes in financially smart decisions that will help to enable you to have more freedom in your life.

Buying an expensive status symbol that is both inconvenient to use and sold by a company that seeks to control your every move with the car you bought, and use that control to both conduct surveillance on you so they can get you to spend more money for less benefits to YOU? That is the opposite of what Rational Motoring is all about, and until a truly environmentally friendly solution to climate change and carbon emissions is found, then I cannot get behind the near-religious fervor of the current push for electric cars.

Summary

What do you think of electric cars? What has your experience been with them? Would you still buy one? Let me know in the comments below.

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