Car Czar Kamala Harris Struggles to Charge Electric Car

 

It is easy to forget that Kamala was also named “car czar” as well in support of EV’s.

Kamala Harris wonders how the electric car charges because there is no guzzling sound or fume when plugged in. Well Kamala, it doesn’t make a guzzling sound like the old electricity did.

Harris asks “How do I know it’s charging?”   Well, there is the old water test.

Electrocution in Water - YouTube

 

The video dates back to 2021 when Harris was speaking with reporters at the Brandywine Maintenance Facility in Prince George’s county.

Gee Wiz Mr. Science, plugging something into an electrical outlet is nothing like filling it up with gas!!

 

Now you just stand there holding the plug, just like that, for a few more hours.

 

 

 

Let’s implement a charging grid we know we can’t support with the current power demands, those very electric facilities running off fossil fuels. They want to up our dependency to charge vehicles that require lithium batteries which cause more pollution and natural devastation than what’s already in place.

Keep holding on to that plug Kamala.

I caught this story from the The Times of India just published, and it was a refresher of my earlier post on the topic.

Read more Times of India

Billions of dollars spent and we have 6 charging stations completed. The world laughs at us.

The best of the swamp.

Posted in election. Tags: , , . 23 Comments »

Germany Considering Implementing Driving Bans on Weekends this Summer

Germany is not meeting its target of “conforming to Climate Protection Laws.” The next step? Banning driving on weekends.

So the climate cult is even more radical in Europe than the U.S. This while knowing that Germany has reduced emissions in 2023 to the lowest level in 70 years.  We already know the food supply in Europe is in danger with the attack on farmers, now they would have their population forced into sitting at home on weekends? Even considering such nonsense, points out how far the Globalists want to take this.

Meanwhile China is approving New Coal Power projects at the equivalent of two plants every week.

The Chinese government has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, and in 2021 the president, Xi Jinping, promised to stop building coal powered plants abroad.

But after regional power crunches in 2022, China started a domestic spree of approving new projects and restarting suspended ones. In 2022 the government approved a record-breaking 106 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity. One gigawatt is the equivalent of a large coal power plant.

This run of approvals is continuing, potentially on track to break last year’s record, according to analysis by the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. (Source The Guardian)

And Germany?

BERLIN, April 12 (Reuters) – German Transport Minister Volker Wissing attracted backlash on Friday after threatening to impose weekend driving bans in the summer to abide by the climate protection law, in the latest dispute within Berlin’s ruling coalition over decarbonising.
Greenhouse emissions of Europe’s biggest economy fell to the lowest level in 70 years in 2023, but the transport sector has been consistently failing to meet its climate targets.
According to the current climate protection law, the ministry responsible for underperforming sectors must launch an immediate program to put them back on track.
The transport minister has so far resisted introducing such a program for the sector, saying incoming amendments to the climate protection law would allow the sector to miss its CO2 cuts target if Germany’s total emissions target is met.
The transport ministry said reforming the sector is more challenging than other areas of the economy because it affects people’s everyday lives which cannot be changed quickly.
Notes from the video:

NEWS GERMANY AND EU:

For climate protection: Will Wissing soon have to introduce the driving ban at the weekend? / WDR Current Hour In the dispute over the climate protection Law, Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing warns against drastic measures: “Indefinite driving bans” could become possible in the summer.

He has now written this in a letter to the coalition partners. From Wissing’s point of view, the existing climate protection law is to blame. According to this, its sector – transport – will have to save an additional 22 million tons of CO2 this year. Otherwise, his sector would not be able to meet the targets.

Wissing therefore wants to restructure the climate Protection Act: when it comes to CO2 savings, it is no longer necessary to look at the individual sectors, but at all of them together. And those who save too little – as is currently the case with transport – can offset this with other sectors that save more.

That would relieve Wissing. If the new law does not come into force before mid-July, according to the current climate law, he would have to respond with driving bans.

One way or another, one sector or another will have to bite the bullet with new restrictions. Good luck Germany.

The very best of the swamp.

The Self Driving Machine

by Mustang

The question is, why are we experimenting with autonomous cars and trucks?  The fact is that we’ve been experimenting with driver autonomy since around 1939, and we’ve been serious about it for the past 44 years.  The first self-sufficient and truly autonomous cars appeared in the 1980s at Carnegie Mellon University and Bundeswehr University (Germany).

Since then, numerous major companies and research organizations have developed working autonomous vehicles, including Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Continental Automotive Systems, Autoliv Inc., Bosch, Nissan, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Vislab from the University of Parma, Oxford University, and of course, Mr. Google.

All of these companies and labs have made great strides since 2013, all with the approval of national assemblies in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom.  Today, the robotic testing of cars in traffic is a solid go — despite 500 car accidents reported with automated systems engaged through 2023, 11 human deaths, and numerous serious injuries.

Has any of these problems prompted a moratorium on the testing of autonomous vehicles?  Not at all.  Despite the injuries and deaths, authorities are proceeding with testing 35,000-pound semi-trucks on U.S. Interstate highways.  At present, real human volunteers remain seated in the driver’s seat while computers operate massive 18-wheel trucks between Dallas and Houston, but those safeguards are only temporary.  We’re getting ready to “go live.”

Aurora Innovation, Inc.’s eighteen-wheel vehicles are part of a new class of autonomous “big rigs” plying the nation’s highways.  By the end of 2024, trucks operated by Aurora Innovation and Kodiak Robotics will begin traveling without human minders throughout Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada.

Meanwhile, so-called experts continue to argue that robotic trucks could reduce the time it takes to transport goods while freeing the trucking industry from the costs of human labor.  On the other end of the spectrum, some emphasize concerns about highway safety, job loss, the absence of federal highway regulations, and a patchwork of state laws regarding where and how autonomous trucks can operate.

Silence is golden, so driverless passenger vehicles and trucks can travel anywhere in the United States (by default) unless or until states explicitly prohibit them from operating on their highways.  That means robotic companies can test and operate their vehicles across most of the country because only two dozen states (including Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada) specifically allow driverless operations.  Sixteen states have no regulations specific to autonomous vehicles, while ten states have placed some limitations on autonomous vehicles.

Advocates of driverless vehicles say they have been frustrated at how slowly the federal government has moved on this issue — particularly given its potential to affect a massive part of the American economy.  Others, however, remind us that driverless vehicles have caused chaos in cities like San Francisco — including horrific accidents where robotic taxis killed jaywalking pedestrians.

Trucking industry experts have said that the notion of massive-sized trucks barreling down highways without operators is frightening.  When you think about it, it is terrifying — but the argument will soon become one of statistical percentages.  “Okay, this autonomous truck with a computer virus indeed wiped out an entire family, but it was only about .028455216 of all highway accidents!”

 At least now we all understand how the government intends to replace big-rig diesel trucks with electric ones.

See also the Washington Post.

Posted in Green. Tags: , , . 12 Comments »

Auto Makers are Sharing Driving Info to Insurance Companies – Braking Hard, Accelerating

No stone left unturned, selling this info to your insurance company and determining your rate.  From night time driving to miles driven. Average speed to fuel economy. Anyone believe that this info is or will not wind up in the hands of our government? Our Social Credit Score? Will this be part of so many energy credits? Miles we are permitted.

New York Times:

LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car.

Numerous people on the forums complained about spiking premiums as a result. A Cadillac driver in Palm Beach County, Fla., who asked not to be named because he is considering a lawsuit against G.M., said he was denied auto insurance by seven companies in December. When he asked an agent why, she advised him to pull his LexisNexis report. He discovered six months of his driving activity, including many instances of hard braking and hard accelerating, as well as some speeding.

An image from the Chevrolet Smart Driver app showing the driver's score of 50 for the week.

A driver who was surprised to discover that he was enrolled in Smart Driver posted a screenshot of his low score to an online forum for Corvette drivers in 2022.Credit…The New York Times

“I don’t know the definition of hard brake. My passenger’s head isn’t hitting the dash,” he said. “Same with acceleration. I’m not peeling out. I’m not sure how the car defines that. I don’t feel I’m driving aggressively or dangerously.”

Screenshots from Mitsubishi’s app showing the definition of hard braking and different categories of roadside assistance.

….

In response to questions from The New York Times, G.M. confirmed that it shares “select insights” about hard braking, hard accelerating, speeding over 80 miles an hour and drive time of Smart Driver enrollees with LexisNexis and another data broker that works with the insurance industry called Verisk.

Customers turn on Smart Driver, said Ms. Lucich, the G.M. spokeswoman, “at the time of purchase or through their vehicle mobile app.” It is possible that G.M. drivers who insisted they didn’t opt in were unknowingly signed up at the dealership, where salespeople can receive bonuses for successful enrollment of customers in OnStar services, including Smart Driver, according to a company manual.

The Cadillac owner in Florida said he had not heard of Smart Driver and never noticed it in the MyCadillac app. He reviewed the paperwork he signed at the dealership when he bought his Cadillac in the fall of 2021 and found no mention of signing up for it.

“When a customer accepts the user terms and privacy statement (which are separately reviewed in the enrollment flow), they consent to sharing their data with third parties,” Ms. Lucich wrote in an email, pointing to OnStar’s privacy statement.

But that statement’s section on “third-party business relationships” does not mention Smart Driver. It names SiriusXM as a company G.M. might share data with, not LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which G.M. has partnered with since 2019.

General Motors is not the only automaker sharing driving behavior. Kia, Subaru and Mitsubishi also contribute to the LexisNexis “Telematics Exchange,” a “portal for sharing consumer-approved connected car data with insurers.” As of 2022, the exchange, according to a LexisNexis news release, has “real-world driving behavior” collected “from over 10 million vehicles.”

Verisk also claims to have access to data from millions of vehicles and partnerships with major automakers, including Ford, Honda and Hyundai.Get a score based on how you drive. The better your driving habits, the better your score.

For a Honda:

View your trip history and get tips on improving your score. Available on select models. For more details of compatible vehicles, visit https://hondalink.honda.com/#/DriverF…

How to Find Out What Your Car Is Doing

  • See the data your car is capable of collecting with this tool: https://vehicleprivacyreport.com/.

  • Check your connected car app, if you use one, to see if you are enrolled in one of these programs.

  • Do an online search for “privacy request form” alongside the name of your vehicle’s manufacturer. There should be instructions on how to request information your car company has about you.

  • Request your LexisNexis report: https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/consumer

  • Request your Verisk report: https://fcra.verisk.com/#/

Read more at the NY Times

The best of the swamp.

Wisconsin Mandating a Single Lane for Two Way Car Traffic – ‘Let’s Take a header’

Chaos for drivers. We Drove the New Insane Milwaukee ‘Advisory Bike Lane’ & Barely Survived!

Boy, you gotta REALLY trust in other drivers to be willing to play chicken with them every few seconds. “Let’s make safer roads!” “I got it, boss! Have them drive head-on with each other and swerve out the way at the last second…into the bike lanes! Drivers will learn the ‘Safe System.'” “Brilliant! Just like the roundabouts!”

Just when you think that it could not come up with anything more absurd, we get this. 

 

Let me finish the post out with some good reads – links to some fellow bloggers.

The Night Wind – Who are the real anti-semites

ENTER THE STRONGMAN

Pirate’s Cove – if all you see

The blog of the day is IOTW Report, with a post on trends in congressional retirement

The Daley Gator

Marxist Moron time

Vermont Folk Troth

Holton Township, Michigan establishes its own Militia to protect second amendment and declares it will not enforce new red-flag laws restricting gun ownership — Hellbound and Down

The Tactical Hermit – You tell em Granny!

Afternoon Laugh

IMAO

Cartoons and Memes : Saturday Night Special

Tacky Raccoons – Some good tunes to end the post.

Saturday Matinee – Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Albert Castiglia w/ John Ginty, and Larkin Poe

Wishing you a wonderful day.

Saturday Passel of Fun and Mayhem 2/11

 

Let’s see what mischief our fellow earthlings and animals have gotten themselves into this week. It’s Saturday and time for a break from politics and maybe we can catch a smile or two. 

For politics check out “Top Posts” on the upper right hand side of the page.

Enjoy!

Page may take a few seconds to load.  For politics page down and/or check top posts at the right side of the page. 

 

Good Morning!

Image

 

We will start out with out usual “Deep  Thoughts by Kamala Harris”

The deep thought today is  “Work”

 

 

Deep thoughts by President Biden.

The deep thought today is “Balloon”

 

Now Bunks Prime

 

Bonus:

 

 

 

My homies here in the neighborhood. Fly Eagles Fly!

I will close out the post to visit our underwater friends, The Seahorse.

Linky links at The Daley Gator

Weekend News/Opinion Links

Wishing you a wonderful day.

Posted in Fun. Tags: , , , , , . 19 Comments »

Saturday Passel of Fun and Mayhem 1/28

 

Let’s see what mischief our fellow earthlings and animals have gotten themselves into this week. It’s Saturday and time for a break from politics and maybe we can catch a smile or two. For fun and mayhem on the political scene check out yesterday’s post:

 

For politics check out “Top Posts” on the upper right hand side of the page.

Enjoy!

Page may take a few seconds to load.  For politics page down and/or check top posts at the right side of the page. 

 

Good Morning!

 

Image

 

We will start out with out usual “Deep  Thoughts by Kamala Harris”

The deep thought today is “The Declaration of Independence” 

 

 

Deep thoughts by President Biden.

The deep thought today is “Recession” 

 

 

Now Bunks Prime

 

Image

Posted in Fun. Tags: , , , , . 8 Comments »

CA Newsom Brags About Being “First Jurisdiction In The World” To Ban Gas-Powered Sales

100% of all cars sold in California by 2035 must be ‘free of fossil fuel emissions.’

Sure, everyone has $70,000 to spend on a new car and $20,000 for a car battery replacement. Better yet, the energy grid will be more than happy to leap into the breech and supply the additional load.

 
Add the USA to the list.
 
Biden last year announced a new order to have 40% to 50% of US auto sales electric by 2030.
 
California also got a boost from the Biden administration, which reinstated California’s longtime ability to set its own vehicle emission standards earlier this year. The Trump administration rolled back the California waiver in 2019.
 
Thank you orange man. Do you think the GOP candidates might run on this???? I follow the releases of the so called GOP War Room for fast turn around of newsy item videos. Not a mention of this draconian action.
 
California has been allowed to be in the drivers seat for years, dictating standards that Detroit has been more than willing to be accommodating.
 

“This is monumental,” California Air Resources Board member Daniel Sperling told CNN. “This is the most important thing that CARB has done in the last 30 years. It’s important not just for California, but it’s important for the country and the world.”

(CNN) California air regulators voted Thursday to approve stringent rules that would ban the sale of new gasoline cars by 2035 and set interim targets to phase the cars out.

The measure is a historic one in the US, and would be one of the first such bans worldwide. It has major implications for the US car market, given how large California’s economy is and that several states are expected to implement similar rules.
 
The board’s new rules would also set interim quotas for zero-emission vehicles, focusing on new models. Starting with 2026 models, 35% of new cars, SUVs and small pickups sold in California would be required to be zero-emission vehicles. That quota would increase each year and is expected to reach 51% of all new car sales in 2028, 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035. The quotas also would allow 20% of zero-emission cars sold to be plug-in hybrids.
 
 
“The climate crisis is solvable if we focus on the big, bold steps necessary to stem the tide of carbon pollution,” California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

On Thursday California air regulators voted to ban new gas-powered car sales by 2035.

Multiple states are expected to follow suit. Already, 15 states including Colorado and Minnesota, as well as states on the Northeast and West Coast followed California’s previous zero-emission vehicle regulations.

And the California voters can’t get this guy recalled?

The very best of the swamp today.

Granholm: Biden is “Really Focused” on Inflation

Granholm made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows. “One of the biggest pieces of these inflationary increases is the price of fuel” she says. What a surprise. Who would have guessed it? She has come a long way don’t you think…. and best part is that Biden is focused like a laser..Let’s have a little fun checking out what our savants are saying about inflation and energy with a few short clips. Here we go. 

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm: “Oh, For Sure” Biden Is “Really Focused” On Inflation

 

Focused but not so much on “Drill Baby Drill” type thing.

She thinks you fill up a tank with electricity..

What’s Charging Those Stations? 🤔 | Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm On Gas Prices & EVs

OOPSIE– Lansing Energy running on 95 percent coal. Ouch.

What About The Rest Of Us? | Senator Debbie Stabenow Gloats About Buying An EV. How many think that Deb drove from Michigan to D.C. and passed all of those gas stations smiling all the time? The average distance I read is somewhere between 260 and 340 miles per tank. Just how were those charging stations?

 

They have to speak like they’re talking to children because that’s the level of intelligence of a progressive.

Our gal is right there in it…with us every step of the way. A great comfort.

Kamala reassures us that every one is working together.

Nothing better than a bit of Terrence. We shall see if this stays up.

Sums up the whole amazing absurdity of it all… hope you enjoyed.

Truly the very best of the swamp today.

Biden Mandates Increased Ethanol in Gas – Raises Corn Prices by 30 Percent

 

Smart. Burning your food to make “renewable” fuels that will raise the price of corn by 30 percent when there is a looming food shortage. Better, it will requirer more fertilizer which is in short supply and that price too is soaring. Best? Probably put smaller refineries out of business. And the coup de grace? Causes engine wear and damages your car. All this to force the issue of EV’s.

It is hard to think all this is not intentional. It’s odd that if EV was so great and everyone should be using them, why is the government so intent on (or even has to) coercing/forcing the public to move to EV by intentional destroying internal combustion any way they can. Meanwhile we sit on a boatload of fossils fuels that the world envies.

 

A fools game.

On Friday

Biden’s EPA Mandated the Most Ethanol Use Ever.

The EPA, after gathering comments since releasing it proposed blending requirements in December, said Friday it will require refiners to blend 20.77 billion gallons of ethanol, biodiesel and other renewable fuel this year.

Additionally, the oil industry must blend 250 million more gallons of renewable fuel, both this year and next, after a federal court found the Obama administration inappropriately reduced the 2016 blending requirements.

The agency also denied roughly 70 exemptions for small refineries, many of which had been granted under former President Donald Trump.

…..

Refiners Complain

But Chet Thompson, CEO of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, said the blending requirement for this year is “contrary to the administration’s claims to be doing everything in their power to provide relief to consumers.”

“Unachievable mandates will needlessly raise fuel production costs and further threaten the viability of U.S. small refineries, both at the expense of consumers,” Thompson said.

….

Now we go into the old “market credits.” We wonder why the price of gasoline is so high? Maybe Peter Doocy could ask our White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about this. That would be a hoot.

The Wall Street Journal reported EPA Trims Ethanol Fuel Mandate for 2020-21 But Raises It for 2022

The Biden administration on Friday retroactively reduced the amount of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline for 2020 and 2021 but raised the level for 2022, saying the changes are aimed at helping boost domestic fuel supplies.

The agency can adjust these requirements retroactively, signaling to refiners how much they will have to spend to buy market credits that help them comply with obligations lingering from past years.

Both ethanol and corn prices have risen sharply, and cutting the 2022 mandate potentially could have lowered refiners’ business costs and led to lower prices at the pump, but likely by only a few cents a gallon, said analysts at research and consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group LLC.

Let’s get rid of the smaller refineries. Transportation Secretary Butt Boy complains about the big companies running things:

South Jersey refinery says cost-mandated fuel credits threaten its survival

New Jersey lawmakers waded into a long-running battle by independent oil refiners for reform of a federal mandate that the companies say is costing them millions of dollars and threatening their survival.

Both the Senate and Assembly unanimously passed a resolution urging President Joe Biden and the Environmental Protection Agency to allow waivers to the Renewable Fuels Standard that would ease financial pressure on refiners such as Parsippany-based PBF Energy which employs about 225 people at a facility in Paulsboro.

To comply with the standard, PBF and other refiners who are unable to blend biofuels such as ethanol with gasoline and diesel are required instead to buy credits called Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs, that have recently surged in price because they are traded on the open market.

Prices for the credits jumped to a record high of almost $2 in June from only 10 cents at the start of 2020, the resolution said. They are now the second-largest expense for refiners like PBF, after crude oil. The document noted that 800 million fewer credits were issued last year than were needed to meet the 2020 standard.

The burden of the credits is worsened, the independent refiners say, by the fact that they buy them from larger competitors who have the technical ability to blend biofuels, and so earn the credits that they can then sell to the smaller companies. That amounts to the smaller companies effectively subsidizing their competitors, they say. Source

And our farmland?

Millions of acres are being pointlessly sacrificed just to grow corn to fuel gas-guzzling SUVs,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Meanwhile the EPA looks the other way as our ocean dead zones grow, water pollution worsens, and endangered species suffer.”

Expanded ethanol production under federal mandates raised corn prices by 30% and the prices of other crops by 20%, according to a report published earlier this year in the National Academy of SciencesThe report also said growing more corn for ethanol led to increased amounts of water pollutants from U.S. farms and negated ethanol’s climate benefits.

The Biden administration announced it will suspend a federal rule that bars higher levels of ethanol in gasoline during the summertime. The move is intended to lower fuel prices. However, that decision is to authorize year-round use of E15 or 15% ethanol.

Now the best part not to be missed.

 

EPA to Expand E15 Ethanol Fuel – Is Ethanol Bad For Your Car’s Engine?

 

 

 

A comment left:

My car SPECIFICALLY states NOT to use Ethanol fuel because it will damage the aluminum block. Almost every car’s block is corroded but ethanol and so extensively damaged by E-15 that the life of the vehicle is reduced by 60-75% so, a life of 5-7 years not 15-25 years. I smell a rat.

 

Read more at Zero Hedge

Bonus time for laughs and giggles: