President Joe Biden and his administration have attempted to convince Americans that electric vehicles will solve all of our problems, but a new study found one leftist city was vastly unprepared for a complete switch to electric vehicles.
The study was led by retired University of California, Berkeley, bioengineering professor David Rempel working with volunteers from the nonprofit organization Cool the Earth, according to Fox Business. It took place between Feb. 12 and March 7.
Researchers cited multiple complaints from electric vehicle owners about charging stations in the area as the motivation for the study. It assessed 657 electric vehicle charging plugs at 181 public stations in nine counties around the deep-blue, Democrat-dominated San Francisco Bay Area.
Rempel and the other volunteers drove electric vehicles to the charging stations and plugged them for two minutes to test the charger’s functionality. Tesla charging stations were not evaluated in the study.
Of the 657 plugs studied, only 72.5 percent were fully functioning at the time of the assessment. Meanwhile, 22.7 percent were not functioning correctly, and another 4.9 of the charging cords were too short to reach the plug-in on the vehicle.
Among the issues researchers found in the non-functional chargers were system electrical failures, blank or unresponsive screens and payment system failures.
More than a week after the initial evaluations, Rempel and other volunteers returned to stations to test a randomly selected 10 percent of the non-functioning charges. The chargers “demonstrated no overall change in functionality,” the study said.
In response to the findings, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told Fox Business the state “is committed to and investing in improving charging access and reliability, and working with the charging industry, automakers, standards organizations, community organizations and other stakeholders” to reach that end.
This study is just the latest in a list of examples proving the United States does not yet have the infrastructure in place to fully switch to electric vehicles.
In March, Business Insider reporter Ben Bergman documented the incredibly long line he encountered while trying to charge his Tesla.
He said the issue was caused by a lack of chargers to accommodate the growing number of Tesla owners, and he even suggested he would rather pay outrageously high gas prices than wait in the line.
The very rare time as a Tesla owner I wish I could pay $6/gallon for gas and be on my way. We need more super chargers @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/qmxbghkycO
Will you buy an electric car?— Ben Bergman (@thebenbergman) March 20, 2022
Other countries have encountered major problems with electric vehicles, as well. In Paris, the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens was forced to yank 149 electric buses off the street after one of them spontaneously exploded on April 29. It was the second electric bus in just one month to unexpectedly explode.
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On top of all that, electric vehicles may not be the money-saving machines the Biden administration would have you believe.
According to Fox Business, the national average for a kilowatt-hour of electricity is 13 cents, which applies to the 240-volt Level 2 chargers many electric vehicle owners install in their homes or use in public spaces. However, these chargers can take eight hours or more to fully charge the average vehicle.
There are faster Level 3 chargers that can charge vehicles to 80 percent capacity in as little as 18-40 minutes, but rates for these chargers are as high as 43 cents per kilowatt-hour in states such as California, New York, Florida and Washington, Fox Business reported.
At that rate, according to Fox Business, charging an entry-level Ford Mustand Mach-E, which has a 247-mile range between charges, would cost $2,100 per year for 15,000 miles of driving.
For comparison, a Ford Escape Hybrid gets 41 mpg, and it would cost about $1,550 in gas per year at $4.25 per gallon, according to Fox Business.
A fully gas-powered Ford Escape S, which gets 30 miles per gallon, would cost $2,100 per year in gas at $4.25 per gallon. This is equivalent to the cost of charging the electric Ford Mustang Mach-E at Level 3 charging stations for 15,000 miles of driving.
So while electric vehicles can save the consumer money, they can be just as if not more expensive to fill up depending on the charging method. Add this to the fact that over a quarter of chargers in some leftist cities don’t seem to work, and the result is hardly a glowing endorsement for electric vehicles.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
