The Liberals screwing over Canadians for American cold war games. Not that the Tories would do any different.

@jackjjackson
Okay, fair enough. You make good points. Different users of hybrid vehicles often have different talking points for their decision to go hybrid versus full EV.

EV versus hybrid is not something akin to 'one size fits all' in all situations.

My field of expertise is research and propulsion design development engineering used in the heavy marine industry, such as luxury yachts, cruise ships, cargo vessels and non-nuclear submarine propulsion retrofits during my time with the Royal Swedish Navy.

Just as each application is different in marine propulsion design, so is pure EV application very different between one country and another. The reason EV works in some countries but not in other countries, is because of the anomalies found in each country, not because of the EV technology itself.

In Sweden where I live and work for example, 90% of all vehicular traffic is pure EV. No hybrids at all. The only thing that uses pure petrol-based fuel are large trucks because EV does not work well when pulling heavy loads.

However, the EV charging stations in Sweden are located every 10 miles on any roadway in Sweden in all directions and are 100% solar powered and do not normally feed from the common electrical grid, which of itself is only 60% solar powered and 40% powered by fossil fuel generators.

This works in Sweden because all the charging stations were installed before the very first EV car hit the market here and re-charging has never been an issue for anyone. Charging is also very cheap because of the solar installation. Costs about $5 in USD to fully charge an EV battery.

Additionally, the distances traveled in Sweden compared to the average daily commute in the USA is only a fraction of the daily distance, which means comparing Sweden to the USA is comparing apples to oranges.

For that reason, going pure EV in Sweden is a no-brainer because the whole system functions seamlessly in the Swedish situation.

To compare the EV situation in the USA to that of Sweden from a practical standpoint, is a really a joking matter which I say with all due respect.

The fact that EV cars were introduced into the American marketplace BEFORE all the charging stations were up and running, was an initiative that was performed completely backwards unless the focus was total failure in the first place.

For that reason, pure EV in the USA in the way it's been implemented was unsustainable from the very beginning and could only lead to total failure.

Hybrid therefore, is the most fuel-efficient choice if one lived in the USA, particularly if one lives at a latitude consistent with that of South Carolina.

EV batteries are designed for a mean annual ambient temperature of 59*F which is what all battery 'range' figures are based on.

When the temp drops to -40 in northern USA, the range of an EV battery decreases by as much as 50% assuming it's a new battery. If the battery is 4 years old, expect a range decrease of as much as 75% from a full charge from what was originally advertised for that car when it was new. With an 8 year old battery, expect a 90% decrease in range at -40*F.

And for your own information for your Toyota hybrid, the only time a hybrid is saving you money in terms of 'fuel not used', is during the acceleration phase from dead stop to 30 mph, which is the speed range where an internal combustion engine is least efficient and uses the most fuel.

As your gas engine kicks in at speeds above 30 mph assuming the battery was used to accelerate you up to that speed, your gas engine is no more efficient at 30 than it is at 50 mph, thereafter dropping 1% per mph for all speeds in excess of 50.

One may be getting 30 miles per gallon in their 'non-hybrid', purely gasoline powered car, but that mpg figure is based on a test speed of 42 mph at an ambient temperature of 59*F on a dry paved surface with the tires inflated 10 psi over the maximum recommended pressure and is inclusive of the fuel that was wasted between zero and 30 mph at the beginning of the acceleration run for the test.

Your Toyota hybrid therefore, eliminates that gas-powered acceleration run from zero to 30 mph by using battery power at first, then switches to gasoline at the beginning of the speed range where a gas engine operates the most efficiently between 30 and 50 (best mpg).

That is why for situations across the board in the USA, pure EV is NOT a good choice at this time in EV evolution because the average commuting distances in the USA are too vast, the time to re-charge an EV is too great and people will not tolerate sitting stopped for 20 minutes to re-charge their car in the morning if they are commuters.

In all honesty, I can see hybrid being the mainstay in countries like the USA and Canada, even in the year 2050 for the reasons given. Pure EV has a very limited application base in mainland USA, but would actually work great in the State of Hawaii or Florida where speeds are low, temperatures are consistently moderate and travel distances are relatively short.

@SandWitch In Canada we have some interesting complications. Like the US our Liberal Party (liberal as in market liberalism) believe in an ideology where the free market should be left to figure out the infrastructure issue.

That is why we have only a handful of charging stations and none of them are compatible because the car manufacturers are having a format war and the charging stations are gambling on who wins the format war over a power plug.

Also the size of our country combined with the fact that much of our country has very cold winters. -20 to -40C for in some cases almost half the year.

We occasionally get blizzards even in early May.

And for ideological reasons they leave it up to car companies to figure out these issues for them.

Unlike Europe we don't have good public transit, proper bike infrastructure and no answers for millions of Canadians that will be priced out of a vehicle because of their policies.

Brilliant and detailed analysis. Thanks for the education 😀 @SandWitch

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

That's just it, they don't want you "buying EVs by 2030," they want you buying "their EVs" by 2030, the ones they are invested in, so they can get rich.

@calicuz Well yes and no. They have a goal of making only EVs available for sale in Canada by 2036 is memory serves. The new problem is they want to now force us to buy overpriced American EVs .

I mean shit. They are not even talking about improving public transit systems for people they will price out of the market entirely with this stunt.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

Yes, there is a lot to be sorted out, and I see it taking longer to go make the switch to EV.

@RedBaron Directly nothing.

The connection is our government fucking over millions of Canadians to protect foreign automakers who can't run a competitive business yet feel entitled to the customer base of the entire continent.

@RedBaron To be fair it is not just the auto industry. We also kick Canadian aviation companies in the balls to protect Lockheed and Boeing.

@SandWitch Maybe because I do. I am not the one trying to make the American Big 3 out to be charities.


And of course you just declare anyone who disagrees with your hot take doesn't know what they are talking about.

Despite the fact your positions suggest you don't know what you are talking about.

American corporations are not charities and Canadians don't owe them anything.

And we certainly don't need to suffer to protect their stock price and so our political class can be the pet poodle of the POTUS and just blindly go along with idiot trade wars.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow
I cannot help it that you were severely jaded long before you ever became a member of SW, so I'm going to ignore your obtuse perception of global Trade.

@SandWitch I understand trade. I also understand decades of Canadian politics where we have been sold out by our elected officials for the benefit of Washington over and over.

Oh and I have an uncle who is a Nissan dealer and a cousin who worked at a GM plant till his job went to Mexico.

@jshm2 To clarify the Liberals in this case are the Liberal Party of Canada. Hence the capitalization.

@Burnley123 What makes it even more infuriating is they want to make it so only EVs are for sale in Canada by the next decade. And there is absolutely zero talk about improving public transit, walkable neighborhoods or basically anything for the portion of the population they will price out of a vehicle entirely.