Live interactive discussion where David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav and Stu Turley discuss the current EV market. We love questions live during the show.
Critical Links:
https://irinaslav.substack.com/
https://theenergynewsbeat.substack.com/
Highlights of the Podcast
00:49 – Problems in the EV sector in the United States
04:13 – The psychological aspect of the EV hype
06:50 – The dedication to the for the EV supporters
08:22 – Tesla
10:39 – The insurance companies
12:46 – The minerals issue
14:45 – The car making industry
18:09 – One of the real problems
21:47 – The idea of hydrogen
27:35 – The AI
29:57 – TotalEnergies sued over its resposibility for climate change in Belgium’s first-ever climate action against a multinational company
33:40 – Such litigation shows promise for addressing gaps left by inadequate regulation and for holding major polluters accountable
35:15 – Demand for electric cars slows sharply amid surge in petrol vehicle sales
36:24 – Canoo spent twice its annual revenue on CEO’s private jet travel last year.
37:51 – Biden EPA’s electric truck mandate is truly Insane
40:43 – Tesla Cybertruck owners furious as Basecamp feature underwhelms
46:31 – Tesla scouting locations for $3bn Indian plant
49:21 – One of the great tragedies in American history
50:07 – Trains and hydrogen
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Are EVs A Reality? – Live International Discussion – Energy Realities
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:07] Whew.
Stuart Turley [00:00:07] Yeah. I spent all day on that.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:10] Awesome
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:12] Welcome to the Energy Realities international discussion. And today we’re talking with David Blackmon, Stu Turley, Irina Slav and myself, Tammy Nemeth. And today our topic is are EVs a reality? And yes, I suppose they are reality. But, there seems to be some hiccups in the rollout and implementation of the sort of EV mandates. So starting in the top left corner, David, what do you think about our EV realities?
David Blackmon [00:00:47] Well, we’re we’re having problems in the EV sector in the United States for sure. This year has not gotten off to a good start, for example, for Tesla, which in its quarterly results reported, its deliveries for the first quarter of 2024 were down 20% from the fourth quarter of 2023 and 8% lower than the first quarter of last year. This, this could indicate that the slowing and the increase in demand in the United States is beginning to morph into a decrease in demand in real terms for electric vehicles. At the same time, Ford Motor Company, which lost $4.7 billion on a TV division last year announced that it is delaying the introduction of new electric, SUV and pickup truck models, for at least two years and maybe longer. It’s also mothballing, several big manufacturing plants for EVs for what it calls a retooling. And the company also announced at the same time a change in strategic direction to now focus on not electric vehicles, but on the introduction of a full line of hybrid models across its entire product line. That is, that is the Toyota model. And there’s a reason why Toyota has been the most successful auto company on the face of the Earth for the last 25 years. One of the reasons is it hasn’t chosen to go whole hog into the EV subsidy market. And, Ford Motor Company has apparently made the decision that maybe Toyota knows what they’re doing and maybe we should try to emulate them. I would expect some similar announcements from General Motors sometime in the first half of this year. Because General Motors is also losing a lot of money on its electric vehicle division after Mary Barra decided to go whole hog into the Biden agenda back in 2021. So one last thing I should mention also is that Toyota is really struggling with its Cybertruck. Its very weird looking pickup truck that it’s Toyota only introduced.
Tammy Nemeth [00:03:17] Tesla.
David Blackmon [00:03:18] Tesla I’m sorry. Tesla and Tesla also announced that it is canceling the introduction of its much hyped model two car, just last week so that they follow Apple, which, also, disbanded its efforts to develop a cheaper electric vehicle model and introduce it to the market. So a lot of fallout in the American auto industry, and it looks like the bloodbath Donald Trump predicted a few weeks ago to much terror from the from the toady media. Is is actually coming about even before China enters the U.S. market. So it’s bad situation for electric vehicles in the United States right now.
Tammy Nemeth [00:04:02] Irina, what do you think?
Irina Slav [00:04:05] Well, I don’t think I can add anything substantial to what David said, but, wanted to to take a moment to talk about the psychological aspect of the EV hype. These a few days ago, I wrote something on X to do with EVs, basically mocking them that their silence and the dangerous and their expensive and all that. You know what impressed me? That I got a lot of responses from what seemed like very, very, strong EV fans. And this is not the first time I’ve noticed this. It’s like religious fervor. They defend EVs with all they have. So I was wondering what the reason is to this. One reason is religious fervor. It’s like it’s like a religion. You either love EVs or you’re out of the of the cult. You’re an outsider. Or I thought maybe there are some people who have tried EVs that have not been happy with them, but they do not want to admit it. So they double down on defending EVs and, you know, telling us that they are lower maintenance. But what about the higher insurance costs? And what about the danger of total loss when you sustain even a slight injury to your car? And all this which affects all these affect EVs may be theoretically cheaper, in terms of maintenance over the lifetime, but only theoretically, because how long is this lifetime if your car gets written off by your insurer after, you know, a minor collision because they don’t know what’s in the battery and what’s happening in the battery. So this is this is really impressive to me. And it’s it’s like a cult, a separate cult, but part of the bigger transition cult. And no matter what happens, no matter, where EV sales go, there will be these people defending EVs on social networks and maybe making other people think maybe they’re really good. Maybe I should give them a try, which probably won’t happen with where prices are going and sales are going. But this is the development that was really it made an impression on me lately. In addition to all the sales which we we we predicted it, all of us here. But we knew it would happen. It was only a matter of time. Now it’s happening.
Tammy Nemeth [00:06:47] Well, would you describe what you describe, though, about the dedication to the for the EV supporters is the same thing you see with wind and solar, right, where they double down even when you talk it. But they want to use levelized cost of energy and you say, well, no, you have to take into account all of the transmission costs, the backup costs, all of these other things. And it’s like, no, no, no, they’re still cheaper. And and the EVs are part of that same mentality where, you know, as you point out rightly, maybe it’s, you know, what do they call it? Buyer
David Blackmon [00:07:23] remorse.
Tammy Nemeth [00:07:25] Buyer’s remorse. Right. But then they don’t want to admit that they made that mistake. Or maybe it’s not as good as they thought. It was like the range anxiety that mothers have when they have their kids in the car and they have to go from point A to point B is insane. So this all this does really is add to the stress of women. You know, when you think about having to plan trips and all these different kinds of,
Irina Slav [00:07:51] oh my gosh. So EV is, anti-feminist.
David Blackmon [00:07:54] There you go. All right, I like that.
Stuart Turley [00:07:58] Hey, my feminine side just came out because I get all anxiety ridden when I can’t get to the next place.
David Blackmon [00:08:05] And we don’t we do not wants to have an anxiety.
Tammy Nemeth [00:08:11] Stu, what’s your take on all this? Are the EVs a reality?
Stuart Turley [00:08:15] Oh, they’re here to stay, baby. And I personally, I think that they are from the standpoint I think Tesla will be around. I think he is going to survive I love Elon, yeah I think Teslas are going to survive. In fact, I think in one of my articles, today is Elon is expanding into India and that is a premier brand that is going to survive. If you want an EV, let the market go by one. But if an EV can’t survive a Texan test, I don’t want it. And here’s my Texan test. I’m going to throw a brick into a washing machine. Okay. And here we go. Let’s play this thing. Okay. Oh! Okay. If you can’t work in tact in an oil field and you can’t do this. No, EVs are not going to work.
Irina Slav [00:09:18] In deep learning.
Stuart Turley [00:09:20] Oh, yeah, but look, pretty good home. So, yeah, I have to tow boats. I’ve got trailers. I got, you know, all these other kinds of things. I got no welders. I’ve got all these power things coming in. I got a whole stuff. I can’t do it with an EV that’s going to blow up.
Tammy Nemeth [00:09:42] Why are you hauling stuff? Aren’t you? I mean, the mentality of the of the EV and the energy transition is that you shouldn’t be doing all those things. It’s called staying in a smaller space.
Stuart Turley [00:09:55] For their podcast listeners. I’ve got John Wayne looking over my shoulder.
Irina Slav [00:10:00] Oh.
Stuart Turley [00:10:01] Yeah. I guarantee you, if John Wayne can ride a horse and shoot snakes, so can I. And if John Wayne can, like, haul things around, I’m putting a garden in. I’m putting in a greenhouse. I’m doing things on my land, I have boats, I need to do things. And EV does not support my lifestyle.
Irina Slav [00:10:26] So this is how you get to the evil grip of the fossil fuel industry on the world.
Stuart Turley [00:10:33] Me?
Irina Slav [00:10:33] You’re an enabler Stu.
Stuart Turley [00:10:37] Yeah. It’s not going to be me, Irina. It’s going to be the insurance companies that totally squash the EV environment. Period. We don’t have insurance.
David Blackmon [00:10:49] Premiums are pretty tough. Yeah, they’re.
Stuart Turley [00:10:51] Going to get worse. So, and I am just sitting here going, we don’t have we have we don’t even have to let the markets decide anymore, Tammy. Because it’s going to be the insurance companies, those guys with a little ecobee’s Ecobee’s calculator.
Tammy Nemeth [00:11:09] Abacus.
Stuart Turley [00:11:10] Thank you. That’s the way I did it. Texas gave us, the the little Jacobus. They want to make money. And if you have, tires are wearing out, there’s so much pollution in air tires that are coming in the ESG hypocrisy. I have a I’ve got a, 350 I that I’m going to be buying a Ford 350 huge big tires and it’s going to use less tires and less pollution than an EV.
Tammy Nemeth [00:11:50] So what you’re saying then is when like there’s mandates coming in around the UK, the Europe, Canada, parts of the United States that is going they’re going to mandate electric vehicles or hybrids after 20, 30, 20, 35 around the that kind of time frame. So what you what you’re saying is with all of these increased costs, the only people who will be able to afford them are the wealthy. And so therefore this is a bit of a class, distinction being made that the only ones you’ll be able to have vehicles if they’re electric or whatever, will be those who can afford them. And if I can just put on this comment here, which is related, where Collins asked, the impending copper crunch will affect EVs along with wind solar battery technologies. What are individual views on the copper crunch? David, I’ll start with you. What do you think about that?
David Blackmon [00:12:45] Yeah, I’ve been writing about the minerals issue for quite a while now. S&P global came out with a study in August of 2022, in which they estimated copper supply demand for copper is going to at least double, over the next decade globally. And and they also estimated that’s going to require the opening of at least 300 new copper mines globally. If you think we’re going to be open in a bunch of copper strip mining operations in the United States in the next ten years, or in Europe, you’re living in a dream world, that’s not going to happen. And by the way, that S&P Global Study was, was published before the rise of AI and which is an extreme energy haul. And I alone is going to require the doubling of generation and transmission lines in the US grid and really in the global grid. Think of all the additional copper that would add to the findings of that study. So we’re not going to double or triple supplies of copper globally. And it’s not just copper. It’s it’s all manner of of other minerals like lithium and cobalt. And, you know, on and on antimony, which no one’s ever heard of is a big one. And it just, you know, it’s it’s a pipe dream that can’t happen. And so what it’s going to boil down to is what Tammy just said. Only the wealthy are going to be able to. Drive, and that’s the real goal of the proponents of this energy transmission is not to have you all driving electric vehicles is to get you out of cars entirely and force you to live a very limited life in a very small geographic area.
Tammy Nemeth [00:14:22] Irina, do you see that happening in Europe?
Irina Slav [00:14:24] No, I don’t really see this happening even in Europe, which also has an upcoming, you know, internal combustion engine car sales ban. But, Director David said these forecasts about global demand, based on projected demand from the car making industry. But now the car making industry is adjusting its plans because nobody’s buying their EVs, then losing actual money on their EVs so that they’re changing their plans. So copper miners who are not in a rush to build new mines, by the way, they’re waiting for prices to go up to see that this demand is materializing. They’re going to continue waiting, which will probably accelerate the shortage. If there is a shortage on the way, or the shortage would not materialize because demand will not soar as much as pretty much all forecasters expect based on projected demand. If the demand is not there, the overall copper demand growth will be smaller from wind and solar and data centers. AI data centers. As David pointed out. But I don’t think any of these bands are going to actually work, especially in the US. I mean, you guys have the most awesome mobile based culture in the whole world. You cannot get Americans out of their cars and tell them, sorry if you can’t for the Navy, you know, walking. Can you imagine this happens if not voluntarily? Well, not voluntarily. What are they going to do? They’re going to they by they, I mean the politicians, cheering for all of them. How exactly is it going to happen? There will be a revolution, right? And even in Europe, people are quite attached to their cars.
Tammy Nemeth [00:16:27] Especially in Germany.
Irina Slav [00:16:29] They probably I don’t know, I don’t have any visual impressions, but. Yeah, we use our cars. We use them to, to do stuff, you know, to move around. And people are not going to switch to EVs willingly, not on the scale expected and planned. And I don’t think even a ban is going to work. I mean, the famous protests were over, arguably much less than an EV. Then. The a carbon and look what they got. They got concessions and they keep protesting. So when? Yeah. I mean that’s come into effect. There will be protests even even long before that, by the way.
Tammy Nemeth [00:17:14] I feel like people aren’t. I feel like people aren’t. They just don’t believe it’s going to happen. That’s absurd. Right? And so no one’s really protesting or putting up a fight because they’re like, are you kidding me? This is stupid. What are you doing? Yeah. And. Right. And so then it’s like, okay, how the EPA, David and Stu have just put in that new tailpipe regulation, which is ridiculous and absurd. And everybody’s saying this is absurd, but they’re still doing it, so I don’t know, are there any plans to sort of, litigate that that rule?
David Blackmon [00:17:51] Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. There’s all kinds of litigation that’s been filed. And of course, we’ve got election coming up in November. And, if the if the Democrats continue to press these issues as overtly as they’ve been doing and, you know, then they’re going to get slaughtered at the polls. And one of the real problems, I think, for the politicians now, is that the Malthusian in the climate alarm movement, who have always kind of tried to stay behind the scenes with their population reduction rhetoric and they’re all their rhetoric about 15 minutes cities and all this, these limiters to human freedoms that is really at the base of their agenda. It’s really the foundation of the whole agenda. Well, they’re becoming emboldened now because they see the politicians have been promoting their policies, putting all these policies in place that basically support their agenda. And so they’re becoming louder and louder and less inhibited about talking openly about killing billions of people to reduce the amount of plant food in the atmosphere. Literally, that’s the agenda. And and the louder the Malthusian has become, and the less inhibited they become, the more difficult it’s going to be for the politicians to continue supporting their agenda. And I just think that’s going to be a continuing phenomenon throughout the next few years.
Tammy Nemeth [00:19:13] Well, now that politicians have basically strapped their careers and egos onto this, it makes it very difficult to sort of walk it back. Because how do you save face when so much personal, political capital has been invested in these kinds of the net zero transition and what all of this stuff is supposed to do? And if I could add one thing about, actually two things. One, the Ford, retooling of their factory and that’s in Canada, and they got a whole bunch of federal subsidy money to redo this factory and everything. And it was supposed to they’re shutting it down this year. They were supposed to open it, reopen it next year. And they said, nope, not till 2027. So now this factory that had been producing components or assembly lines for, various Ford vehicles for North America and Canada, it’s that they’re shutting it down until 2027. It’s three years and and they’re so they’re extended layoffs of the workers and whatever. I’m not really sure what that how that works out if they’re fire going unemployment whatever. And then the other issue is with the copper and I talked about this a little bit earlier, where there’s all these copper thieves going around stripping out the copper from the charging stations, selling it to the recyclers who then turn around and sell it back to the companies that is that put together the chargers. So it’s like the ultimate circular economy. So, you know, okay.
Stuart Turley [00:20:46] Yeah. Apply that kind of entertainment.
David Blackmon [00:20:48] Card on.
Irina Slav [00:20:51] Economy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:20:51] It’s a circular economy. I guess it’s it’s like that South Park episode with the gold, the second hand gold and stuff, which is really amusing and yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:21:02] Stuff part.
Tammy Nemeth [00:21:03] So, Stu, what do you think about the issue of of copper and, will that be a limiter, or do you agree with David that it’s not going to matter?
Stuart Turley [00:21:14] Oh, no, I think it’s going to get worse than that. And I can’t believe that it’s going to get worse. And I feel like I’ve got what little hair left I need to go turn on and just light myself on fire today because of the kneecaps. But, I want to give a shout out to Colin again. Colin, if I can go ahead and bring this up. Cummins, notes and Toyota are all manufacturing hydrogen internal combustion engines, and Tammy, and and I, I love the idea of hydrogen. I think hydrogen is absolutely way cool as a thought process. However, however, the Hindenburg happened for a reason. And and so the water is a huge issue. For hydrogen. We’re going to be limited on it. Yesterday or this morning actually on my podcast with Michael, we talked about I’m David. You just brought up AI water usage on AI is incredible. I did not realize how much AI is using water. So we have new technologies and Toyota’s all in on the hydrogen internal combustion engine. Love it. I think the technology is going to get there. Don’t call me. You know, I like the idea, but, the the fact that water is going to be such a huge issue is very, very frightening. And then, David, your point also, the cost of electrification of the rules of commercial trucks is fleet is 1 trillion just for the charging station. So just keep.
David Blackmon [00:23:08] Charging stations.
Stuart Turley [00:23:09] So talk about a circular economy over here. This charging stations we’ve spent I arena. We’ve spent what $7 billion and we’ve gotten three charging stations in the US. How stupid are we I mean I we’re about as dumb as it gets.
David Blackmon [00:23:31] I can I say one thing about hydrogen and I’ll make it brief is, is, you know, I think the idea for hydrogen, transportation is a glorious idea. It’s always been just around the corner since about 1973. We’re we’re half a century later, it’s still just around the corner. I’d be willing to bet that. And, you know, if we’re still doing this podcast this time next year, by that time, we will have done an episode just like this when we’re doing on EVs today about the future of hydrogen transportation, because the infrastructure challenges are just enormous. The transportation of hydrogen can’t be done in natural gas pipelines for people who still cling to that, mistaken belief, because the molecules, hydrogen molecules are less than half the size of a natural gas molecule, and you’d have leaks all over the place and explosions all over the place. And I just think that, the federal government in the United States already, you know, is implementing a law at the Treasury Department. It’s going to destroy this nascent big hydrogen, you know, industry that Biden supposedly wants to build was own Internal Revenue Service is destroying that dream. So it’s it’s just. You know, I mean, I think, I think as a potential alternative to, to gas powered cars, you know, it’s I guess it’s viable. If you had unlimited money. But we don’t have unlimited money, even though the AOCs of the world think we can. We just don’t. The world doesn’t work that way. And so I just don’t see it as anything that’s really going to be successful.
Irina Slav [00:25:09] And besides the wanting to be green hydrogen.
David Blackmon [00:25:13] You’re even limiting.
Irina Slav [00:25:15] Hydrogen. Yeah, it’s going to be tough right now I hi. I got a license.
Stuart Turley [00:25:22] I got excited when I heard about brown hydrogen when they were going to make it out of, waste factories and poo factories. And, I mean, I’m serious, I we got a rainbow going on here on hydrogen green, you know. Oh, okay.
David Blackmon [00:25:36] Can you imagine the Hindenburg at the local sewage plant? Holy moly. We don’t even want to go there.
Stuart Turley [00:25:42] We got a bunch of comments coming around in here.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:45] So if I can make one comment. So in Canada, they had Ballard. This company, Ballard, has been making hydrogen fuel cells for quite some time. And but they’re really meant for like busses and, and large, large equipment or whatever. And so they’ve been, I think, doing development since 1979, David, just as you point out, you know, since the 70s. Right. And they and it is getting better and, and I guess a fuel cell is better than, than something else. But they did create a whole bunch of electric busses for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and they were too difficult to maintain, and they ended up selling the lot to China. So, I guess it depends not just on having that tech, but how do you maintain it? And what are the the other risk factors now, Stu here has mentioned there’s some comments. Mihai is, suggested that water isn’t really a problem because we have a huge amount of it. I replied that it depends.
David Blackmon [00:26:52] I mean, okay, if you can use saltwater, seawater and brackish water, then that’s probably right. I don’t know.
Irina Slav [00:26:59] you can’t you have to produce green has it uses enormous amounts that have to be distilled. They have to be purified. And then Mihai says that it is really consumed. It’s recovered. Yeah. Later. And it’s not a zero loss process. The hydrolysis that produces green hydrogen. I wish it was, but it isn’t. Sorry, Stu.
Stuart Turley [00:27:26] Oh, no. I’m. I got nine screens going. I’m sorry. The the big E is also on the AI side when you talk about data centers. The article says the big guys can’t hide how much more water they now need in the environmental report. Microsoft said the global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022. That’s over 6,000,000,000l. And this article talks about in the UK, the data centers are going to be using almost half of what the UK is using just in AI data centers. The water is an issue. I mean.
David Blackmon [00:28:10] Moly. So are you sponsored article.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:13] The the article you’re talking about. They’re discussing water as a coolant. Is that correct?
Stuart Turley [00:28:18] Oh yeah. You have to. I mean, being an old data center nerd, you got to have, when I did a, worked on an $8 million server for one server, the the cooling for that one, server that went to the Department of Defense was incredible. And so you just because you’re going to put in AI and data centers and everything else, you got to cool them. Bad dog somehow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:46] Maybe they should put them in space where it’s cold.
Irina Slav [00:28:49] But they’re going into agriculture, food consuming, way too much water, among other things.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:54] Right? Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:28:56] Holy cow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:28:58] So his Santa has has asked, what about desalination and the possible.
David Blackmon [00:29:06] Again, it’s extremely expensive. And.
Irina Slav [00:29:08] Yeah, you know, just adds to the total cost of the process. So it can’t be cheap, right? Yeah, yeah. How did it go? How did we get from EVs? I, I,.
David Blackmon [00:29:18] You know.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:19] This has the alternative to EVs, right?
Irina Slav [00:29:22] Yeah. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:23] Yeah. Well, okay, guys, should we move on to discussing the, headlines? We have to just.
David Blackmon [00:29:29] Go to the headlines. Oh, boy.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:34] Okay, so I’m going to do this. Oh, okay.
David Blackmon [00:29:38] There we go.
Irina Slav [00:29:39] So looking good.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:43] All right, so I think these ones are mine. Maybe. Or did someone else have these ones?
David Blackmon [00:29:48] Not mine.
Irina Slav [00:29:49] These are mine. Yours are EV Related.
Tammy Nemeth [00:29:53] Okay, so, Irina, please tell us about your headlines.
Irina Slav [00:29:56] But let me start with the Belgian farmer for suing TotalEnergies for, for extra work, roads. And, remember that, I can’t remember what else. Basically, climate change is affecting his, his work as a farmer and he’s blaming TotalEnergies, and, actually wrote about that last Monday because it’s a very, very funny case. He’s not doing all big oil. He has a choice of legal majors to sue, even all of them. But he’s suing TotalEnergies. Why? Because TotalEnergies is the biggest oil company operating on the Belgian market, and he has zero doubt in his mind that it is these companies and the industry’s fault that his crops are, weaker or whatever, that he has to work more to get the same, amount of crops. He seems to have no regard whatsoever about the benefits that fuels have brought to him and other farmers. If there were no hydrocarbons, if there were no diesel, fuel, he wouldn’t be farming as he is farming. Yeah. I mean, we’ll be plowing using horses or using.
Tammy Nemeth [00:31:17] Horses.
Irina Slav [00:31:19] Or whatever. Apparently this thought has not entered the mind of this person. So he’s suing because Big oil is all that. And, well, obviously I have a problem with this because I really don’t like seeing such extend, such an extent of stupidity. Or he’s just joining the fads. It’s fashionable just to be golf or whatever, really? So why not try the TotalEnergies recently launched, a lawsuit against Greenpeace. So, you know, what.
David Blackmon [00:31:58] About.
Irina Slav [00:32:00] If I was this farmer and, and then the, the other very, very, lawsuit heavy crop of headlines. There was actually a great story by Kevin Killick for just the news.
David Blackmon [00:32:16] Oh, yeah.
Irina Slav [00:32:18] It’s a horrible story because climate activists who think some of them think that agriculture should be banned, along with the oil and gas industry, there are now trying to sue farmers and meat producers, ranchers, meat packagers for climate change. You know, why is because they can stop people from eating meat any other way. So they’re resorting to courts to force meat. What is it? It’s not meat draws meat farmers to to to stop producing meat because they can’t do it any other way. People are eating more meat, not less meat. Right. And this is obviously outrageous and very climate change. So something needs to be done. And the only thing that can be done apparently, is suing these industries involved in the production of meat.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:20] Yep. Death by a thousand cuts for sure.
Irina Slav [00:33:23] This is just so deranged and evil. Infantile and evil is very, very typical of small children who have no moral compass at all, but have no concept of right and wrong.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:37] Well, I love this tag here. Underneath such litigation shows promise for addressing gaps left by inadequate regulation and for holding major polluters accountable. And this loose use of the word pollution like, oh yeah, two is called polluting.
Irina Slav [00:33:55] So.
Tammy Nemeth [00:33:57] Right. Like, so you’re breathing, you’re polluting every time you breathe really. And it like it’s just it’s absurd. And again, who’s going to stand up for the ranchers now that the oil and gas industry didn’t stand up, they didn’t really do anything. And so now they’re going after the livestock producers. Who’s going to stand up for them?
David Blackmon [00:34:17] Yeah, we better all stand up. Farm folks will be eating crickets.
Tammy Nemeth [00:34:23] I put in there that the so the the Belgian farmer, you have to wonder who’s paying for his for his litigation. No. Well, that would Greenpeace.
Irina Slav [00:34:37] I know you said Greenpeace. It’s great because TotalEnergies is suing Greenpeace is.
Tammy Nemeth [00:34:40] I know well you Greenpeace for for having gone on to their platforms. Right. That’s what that case is about.
Irina Slav [00:34:52] No, they, they, they reported wrong figures about TotalEnergies emissions. oh yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:03] So. Right. Yeah. Shell is suing Greenpeace.
Irina Slav [00:35:05] For the platform. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:07] Right. Okay, okay.
Irina Slav [00:35:09] Aside time.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:12] Okay. This one. Demand for electric cars slowed sharply amid surge in petrol vehicle sales. I think this is my welcome. So this is the UK. So there was this surge in EV sales because everyone is like, oh, EVs are the way to go. The future we’re going to be banning. We have all these ultra low emission zones. And so if you get in an EV, you don’t have to pay this kind of tax, and you don’t have to pay to go into your town or whatever. And so there was this spike in EV sales. And then when people realized there’s not enough chargers around, their insurance costs go through the roof. There’s, you know, all the different things we talked about. Now the sales are going like this. You know, they’re they’re heading in the opposite direction and they’re and they’re really plummeting. So it’ll be interesting to see what the UK does, given their plan to phase out, the internal combustion engine, just like the EU and Canada and stuff. So, that was quite relevant to what we were talking about. And I love this story. There’s an EV company called Canoo, and they spent twice its annual revenue on the CEO’s private jet travel last year. And I don’t think that jet was electric.
David Blackmon [00:36:40] Good, You can.
Irina Slav [00:36:42] You can.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:45] Sorry Irina.
Irina Slav [00:36:46] These are ugly. These are canoes.
David Blackmon [00:36:49] And apparently.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:50] Yeah. So those are the EV is a thing.
Irina Slav [00:36:52] So, you’re asking ,Well.
Tammy Nemeth [00:36:56] More like these facilities, you know, to drive around the the NASA Space Center.
Irina Slav [00:37:03] Yeah, yeah, it’s it doesn’t matter. The.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:05] Yeah, it’s not as cool as space that has Teslas driving around everywhere, which look better than the these funny little vans. People can’t see it. But if you imagine when you were little kids, you had these little, Playmobil vehicles. That’s what it looks like.
David Blackmon [00:37:25] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:37:27] Yeah. Maybe they’re marketing towards, how can we market this to kids, you know? So those are my two little headlines. All right. Okay.
David Blackmon [00:37:39] Oh, well, these must be mine. Since, I’m in the headline there.
Stuart Turley [00:37:44] So I, I tried to steal this one from you, David, but I did not get it.
David Blackmon [00:37:50] So I’m going to go with the EPA electric truck mandate first. This is the stupidest. I mean, there’s so many stupid ideas, but but thinking. And you’re going to electrify America’s truck fleet. 18 Wheeler fleet. 60% of it by 2032 is literally insane. Okay. There’s. First of all, there’s not a company in America that is mass producing electric 18 wheelers right now doesn’t exist. Okay. The, few, models, one off models that have been produced cost three times what it cost by a diesel truck. So independent truckers aren’t going to buy them. Even the big commercial truckers aren’t going to buy them. They’re too expensive. They get 170 miles on a charge. Whereas, standard diesel, 18 Wheeler get upwards of a thousand miles on a tank of diesel. So instead of stopping 2 or 3 times to cross the country, you’re going to be stopping 10 or 15 times to cross the country and spending hours upon hours upon hours recharging your truck batteries, which, by the way, weigh 18,000 pounds. That has to be taken out of your payload that you can haul. And right now the average payload is 20 to 40,000 pounds. So you’re going to cut your payload at least in half. And it’s just it’s the most mind boggling stupid thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.
Stuart Turley [00:39:22] And before and.
David Blackmon [00:39:23] Before. Billions and billions before.
Stuart Turley [00:39:25] You lose your other eardrum, David, from just yelling at us, please. Think about the tires. How many of us have seen the retreads on the tires that are falling off and everything else? Yeah, all of that extra weight on those semi tires are going to have all that extra pollution and all those extra tire parts as we.
David Blackmon [00:39:48] That require special different tires. These tire manufacturers are going to have to manufacture a special grade of tire, okay, that they don’t currently make. And it will take them years to to ramp up a factory to build them, which they don’t have because this mandate goes into effect by 2032. This can’t happen. And not only won’t happen, it can’t happen. There’s not. Not enough money or manpower in the world to make it happen. And even if it does happen, all it’s going to do is crater the whole economy, because you won’t be able to get the goods to the grocery stores and the clothing stores and all the other stores that you got to have for people to buy stuff. And our whole economy is based on people buying stuff. You stupid idiots in Washington. Stop this madness. Second thing. Okay?
Stuart Turley [00:40:38] Give it to David. Go, David.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:39] Go David
Stuart Turley [00:40:40] David. Go David.
David Blackmon [00:40:42] Let me catch my breath. Tesla Cybertruck owners are furious as base camp feature underwhelmed. So the Cybertruck and I’ve said this ever since it was rolled out by Elon Musk in 2019, is going to be a monumental failure because the design is too radical for pickup truck users to ever accept. Okay, besides that, it’s an electric pickup that won’t perform the functionality of a Ford F-150, as Ford itself is finding out what the utter, complete failure of its F-150 lightning model. Okay, that’s piling up in big parking lots outside the Michigan Motor Speedway as a graveyard for all the trucks they can’t sell because guys and gals in the farming business and want to haul stuff like Stuart Turley need to need a car that’s reliable and has some range when you’re hauling something. The main complaint about the Cybertruck so far has been whether it’s the $3,000 tent, the car, the base camp, which supposedly allows you to convert this truck into a camper. Yeah. You remember your grandpa had the the old Ford pickup with the the tin can camper on top of it? Well, Tesla has replaced that with a $3,000 tent that apparently doesn’t work okay, because he’s just getting myriad complaints because the damn thing won’t unfold properly and doesn’t work. You’re getting rust on the bodies. The buyers of these trucks are complaining about rust on the body when they drive it out of the out of the, out of the dealership. Okay. You had a guy, Stan, who had the thing breakdown on him before he drove it a mile off the lot. It’s going to be a massive failure. And, you know, I think Tesla is going to be the one pure play EV company in America that’s going to survive. Every other one will either be in bankruptcy or teetering on the brink by the end of this year. But this is going to be a massive hit to Tesla’s reputation. This stupid truck with their idiotic design. It looks like a Delorean. Okay, it’s just a big Delorean, and it’s not going to be successful,.
Stuart Turley [00:42:51] But it’s bulletproof.
David Blackmon [00:42:52] It. Get on Tesla. Unfortunately,
Stuart Turley [00:42:54] it is bulletproof.
David Blackmon [00:42:56] But it is bulletproof. Well, I like it. Need that. Right?
Tammy Nemeth [00:42:59] Well, I get that. You know, Musk’s ultimate goal is Mars. And what do you need to live on Mars? What what what would be useful? And having Tesla cars running around Mars. Okay, maybe you need something a little more robust. And so I understand why the development of the Cybertruck was important for, for, you know, taking it to Mars or whatever. But I think you’re right. I mean, there’s been so many hiccups in the production line for for that particular vehicle. And I think there’s a lot of issues that need to be addressed, to, to improve that. But yeah, that’s really frustrating. And you have to kind of wonder now that that the left is so angry with Musk and the people who had supported him before. Is that another reason for the decline in purchases of Teslas?
David Blackmon [00:43:52] Yes, I think it is. Definitely it is. And you know, what I think is another problem is that Musk and his management team have thought Tesla was immune to the phenomenon we see in for every automaker is that their body designs begin to look stale within 3 to 5 years. Yeah. If you don’t change those body designs every 3 to 5 years, your people are going to find your cars to be less attractive. And so five years ago, I would look at a Tesla. I’d see it on the road, think, man, that is a beautiful car. And everybody else did too. It’s just a beautiful car. But you look at the same car design and they continue to crank out essentially the same body style for over a decade now, and they look dated compared to the new EVs from GM or BMW or whatever other automaker you want to say. So, and this car, this truck that looked so cutting edge in 2019 when Musk rolled it out. Now just look stupid. And people who drive it look stupid. Okay. Other people. Yeah. So the Tesla is not immune to this. So I think that’s another problem that they’re having right now.
Stuart Turley [00:45:00] I had a I had a video I was going to show of the, carrot test on the Cybertruck. David.
David Blackmon [00:45:07] What?
Stuart Turley [00:45:08] It’s a carrot.
Tammy Nemeth [00:45:09] Test.
David Blackmon [00:45:10] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:45:10] And it’s a guy holding. Faint missing fingers. And so you stick a carrot into when the hatch comes down on the Cybertruck. It cuts the entire carrot off. And carrot and a cucumber. You put them in there, it cuts them off so you can cut your fingers off. I got that going for you. You know, I got a salad maker. I didn’t know that it was going to do this.
Irina Slav [00:45:33] Goodness.
Stuart Turley [00:45:36] Well, you had a lot of calm comments coming around.
David Blackmon [00:45:38] Okay. I’m done. Y’all go up, up, up, man, I gotta calm down.
Tammy Nemeth [00:45:42] Well, okay, so I still do. Look, I want to do yours. Or do you want to look at some of these questions?
Stuart Turley [00:45:49] Yeah. Here’s David’s thing this morning. I believe it was within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro. Al Gore, 2025. Now, you look down here, 2024. Yep. A lot of snow. Way to go out.
David Blackmon [00:46:05] Nothing has changed. No. Literally nothing.
Stuart Turley [00:46:08] Tammy, why don’t we start going through some of the comments? The only one I really want to say is, Buttigieg is, Mayor Pete is absolutely a Nimrod. Hats off to him. He does have a, hybrid that he gets to plug in. He has a plug in hybrid. Got that going for him. And that’s about it. And then, Tesla is really going to survive. I do like, the fact that they will be the EV premier around the world. Tesla is still going to do great. And if you want one, let’s let the market decide. Go go forth and buy it.
David Blackmon [00:46:49] So yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:46:50] Anyway, I’d say let’s go through some of the comments that we had. We had a lot of great comments.
Tammy Nemeth [00:46:56] Okay. Should we start with this one, where Mihai suggests there’s a better way and that’s electric trains.
David Blackmon [00:47:04] It’s working out great in California.
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:06] And then he says, too bad the US forgot how to build those.
David Blackmon [00:47:11] Yes, I agree with that.
Stuart Turley [00:47:13] How many billions? I want to ask a real question. How many billions has California spent? And they’ve gotten one mile.
David Blackmon [00:47:22] They built about 150 miles in the Central Valley. Okay, now there’s one leg of about 150 miles. That’s that’s completed. I think it’ll be the only lane that’s ever completed. They, the developers of it, recently told the legislature they’re going to need at least $100 billion. More than 100 billion. They’ve already spent.
Tammy Nemeth [00:47:42] You. It’s insane.
David Blackmon [00:47:43] It’s it’s insane. The original cost, when it was introduced to the legislature 25 years ago, was going to be $29 billion to go all the way from L.A. to San Francisco. We’re $100 billion in. We need $100 billion more. In ten years from now, they’re going to go to the legislature and tell them, well, we just need another 100 billion, right? Yeah, this is never.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:04] Going to get that much. You’ve already committed that much.
Stuart Turley [00:48:07] Wow.
Tammy Nemeth [00:48:09] And in the UK, they wanted to put in a high speed electric rail line to connect us like Manchester to London or whatever, or something like that called HS2. And they spent billions on it. And there was all these planning issues and people were complaining it’s going to be noisy, blah, blah, blah. And after years and years and years and all this money, they pulled the plug on it last year, said, okay, that’s it, we’re done spending money. We’re not doing it. And so, okay, yeah, I guess Europe sort of does have electric trains already, but good luck trying to build new ones. And and so also for North America to put in electric trains across Canada. In the U.S., it’s a massive landmass. It’s incredibly expensive. As we’ve seen in California. There’s all these regulatory issues. It’s material incentive. I don’t even know if there’s enough transformers. And we talked about there’s not.
Irina Slav [00:49:05] And and what about electricity supply? It has to come from somewhere. But with all these AI data centers coming in and all these EVs where it went well, where do supply electricity first?
David Blackmon [00:49:19] Right. But I do agree with Mihai. One of the great tragedies in American history was our, forgetting how to build rail at a cost effective way. The city of Houston prior to 1953, had the second most extensive, light rail system on the face of the Earth. Okay. Wow. And decided to switch to busses and and all that rail infrastructure go away. And now, of course, to to build new light rail in the city of Houston is well over $1 million per mile. That’s literally the cost. And and you just it’s just it’s a tragedy of American history that unfortunately, we can’t afford to now go back and correct it.
Irina Slav [00:50:03] Yeah. Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:50:05] Well, Colin has an interesting comment here. He says doesn’t have a road transport, not electrified rail transport and aviation mean it’s inevitable that a clean hydrogen economy is the only way to replace fossil fuels.
Irina Slav [00:50:22] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:50:23] Transportation to.
Irina Slav [00:50:25] Clean. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:50:27] Yeah, but I mean, hydrogen has its own infrastructure, multi trillions of dollars of infrastructure issues that have to be solved. And, yeah, that’s a big task. I, you know, it just we’ve got a system that works. To me, the most intelligent thing to be doing would be to clean up and modernize the system we’ve had for a century. We know works. But, that’s just me.
Irina Slav [00:50:54] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:50:55] So, Mihai added, he and Colin were having a discussion, and to me, he says rail transport is eminently electrified, while Europe does it all the time except for the UK, apparently, which is having and maybe other European jurisdictions. And, and then Colin replied, well, much of it isn’t electrified. Well, that’s why diesel powered locomotives are used in abundance. I’m trying to imagine stringing up the. I’ve traveled the rail line through the Rocky Mountains in Canada, and I’m trying to imagine electrifying that. And what happens with avalanches taking out the the power lines and everything. I think I know Switzerland does it, but I think it’s quite different the the sort of winter conditions between Switzerland and, say, British Columbia and Alberta or whatever, so or Colorado for that matter.
David Blackmon [00:51:50] You know, if it’s if it was still 1860 when we built the, transcontinental railroad in the United States, or 1870, whenever it was, we did it in three years, transcontinental railroad all the way across the country. We could do that in the 19th century because it didn’t take us ten years to get environmental permits. Okay. But we can’t do that in America now. It’s too late. We forgot how to do it. We discarded all of that. You can’t afford. There aren’t enough trillions of dollars you can print. You just can’t print that much money to go back. And correct the mistakes of the past. We have to move forward and look at what’s possible going forward. An electric rail system all across the vast expanse of the United States. It’s just not feasible. It just isn’t.
Tammy Nemeth [00:52:37] Yeah. As Serge says here, the cost of building new railways, purchasing land to create space for them easier in Europe, where rail never left in Europe is. It’s a much smaller landmass. More. What’s the word I’m thinking of where the population centers are more concentrated. Then the spread out North America and stuff. So. But then Mihai replied, so there’s this debate going on school. You mean, I says there are solutions for secondary lines from cheaper low voltage catenary to battery electric. And then Mihai also adds, the gifts of bureaucracy, which is so true. And then Colin replied, time will tell if hydrogen powered trains outcompete battery trains, assuming battery tech survives the copper crunch. So.
David Blackmon [00:53:28] So that’s a big assumption.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:31] And then Hassan says spot on David Green hydrogen replacing fossil fuels is not for tomorrow David.
Stuart Turley [00:53:38] Next year. It’s a good thing your camera is so far away because your head would have exploded outside the building. And we wouldn’t be able to see anything except your ears. Don’t be nice. Yeah, Hassan has on. Don’t be nice to David, please. We don’t need you.
Tammy Nemeth [00:53:55] So put it on one more time spot, David.
Irina Slav [00:53:58] See me, Jamie.
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:01] And then Mihai says that hydrogen is nonsense for trains. But I guess it’ll depend on how they do it. If it’s fuel cells, if it’s. You’re pumping hydrogen gas in there, I don’t know. Yeah. It’ll be it’ll be interesting to see how those problems are solved.
Stuart Turley [00:54:20] Yeah. I think the only thing holding back the US from doing, actually anything good is. Thank you, thank you. Cause, the only thing that is holding us back is the legislation through, regulatory action is driving me nuts. Let’s let the great American know how do things. And it’s the same thing in the EU and in Europe. And I want to really, bring out, I’m trying to get in J. And, he is the director. And if you’re listening, the director for the African energy, chamber, on here for the energy realities, he’s got a bunch of stuff that we’ve got to work with in Africa to help get, end energy poverty in Africa as well.
Irina Slav [00:55:15] Good.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:16] That sounds good.
Irina Slav [00:55:17] Very good.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:18] So, are there any last minute comments? I’ll go read the horn. Iryna, do you have any last minute reflections?
Irina Slav [00:55:27] Yeah, I think the discussion was really exhaustive. And so we ended with trains and hydrogen. Hey. Not today.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:39] Stu.
Stuart Turley [00:55:40] I got two points. My head hurts. And it’s unlike Monty Python, which I absolutely love. Monty Python. When they all stand around going, my brain hurts. Right. So next time we’re going to wear all of our little, hankies on the head like they do. But here’s what I think is going to happen to the energy transition. Now, here’s another one. And this is a typical way that I think is going to happen. And, Okay. I’m sorry. That is just the way I think things are going in the energy transition. Okay.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:25] David, any final comments?
David Blackmon [00:56:28] oh. Goodness gracious. Where to begin? No, I you know, I think I said everything I have to say on this topic. I’m looking forward to next week. Thank you everyone for such a great conversation and, all the questions.
Irina Slav [00:56:39] Thanks
David Blackmon [00:56:39] Viewers.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:41] Thank you everyone for the great comments and questions. This was fantastic. And thanks for the great headlines everybody. This is awesome. Thank you.
Stuart Turley [00:56:49] See you next week.
Irina Slav [00:56:50] Have a great day.
Tammy Nemeth [00:56:53] Bye.
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