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Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is dead certain that electrifying the military fleet by 2030 is not only doable, it’s a grand idea. Except it isn’t. It puts our soldiers in danger.
This is a very BAD idea. First, our military recruitment is hurting across the board primarily due to asinine pushes for diversity, equity and inclusion crap, and the vaccine mandates. As it is, our military isn’t prepared for war, yet the Biden Administration is pushing EV crap??!!
Secondly, this country’s electric grid can’t even handle a normal EV push because there just isn’t enough capacity to handle the extra power need! Third, the cost is astronomical. You thought million dollar toilets were expensive? Try electrifying a military fleet, we are talking billions here. Billions.
“Currently the Department of Defense has about 170,000 non-tactical vehicles — the cars and trucks we use on our bases,” Hicks noted.
“That’s the largest fleet in the federal government, next to the U.S. Postal Service. Our success in transitioning this massive fleet to zero emissions, most of which will be electric, will depend on America’s auto industry and autoworkers right here in Detroit.”
General Motors has committed to investing $35 billion in advanced vehicle technologies, to include power and propulsion systems for electric vehicles, noted Steve DuMont, president of GM Defense. The parent company plans to have 30-plus EVs in its product offerings by 2035.
Wait, there’s only 30 EV’s in the pipeline that might arrive by 2035? I’d say Granholm’s assertion of 2030 is a wee bit off.
Fourth, the cost. If our tax dollars are going to EV vehicle investments and we will only have about 30 vehicles to show for spending $35 BILLION to get there, then that means (if my math is correct) each vehicle would cost the American taxpayer at least $116 million per vehicle. Chump change guys. No biggie.
Fifth, this will endanger lives on multiple levels. It may be all fine and dandy to set up charging stations all over the military bases so the fleets can be kept charged. That’s not so easy to do during field exercises, which typically take places in remote areas. I can see it now, let’s run gas or diesel-powered vehicles out to the range areas to quickly help charge up the vehicles that end up sputtering or totally DOA because they lost their charge!
Now translate that into sending those EV’s overseas to areas that DON’T have charging stations, anywhere. Such as Sudan, Djibouti, Iraq, South America, Afghanistan, oh wait, we left there, never mind; and even Europe.
How long will it take these vehicles to charge up? What is their range capacity? How will those vehicles respond in a military response situation? We don’t know, because there isn’t a prototype that has been tested yet that I can find.
Unserious people in serious jobs advised by inexperienced in the real world blobites is … a serious problem. https://t.co/iLR6V871G9
— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) April 26, 2023
So, let’s look at it another way. Here in Colorado everyone is totally agog at the fact that Boulder County Fire will get a brand spanking new electric fire truck!
Boulder has purchased Colorado’s first electric Fire Truck! I’m proud to say Colorado continues to work together towards a clean energy future!https://t.co/leM5qpV5nE pic.twitter.com/Txn0pONkUn
— Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO) April 26, 2023
Oh wait, there’s a catch. More than one in fact. It costs HOW MUCH?
The cost of the truck was approximately $1.78 million. The City of Boulder said that the money to buy the truck was saved over a period of time from the department’s budget to replace the fleet as necessary.
WOW. Ummm…that’s pricey! And that’s not even the top of the line one that can ring in at a price of SIX million smackaroos! By the way, the fire truck isn’t American made. Nope, it’s coming from Austria and will get here by …2025.
There’s another very real catch to this fabulous new fire truck. Boulder is a hilly and mountainous town. This new fire truck will be heavier than gas or diesel-powered ones, and thus chugging up and down hills to respond to a fire will suck the juice right out of the engine. Oh wait, it can still fight the fire because it has a diesel generator to run the fire apparatus on the truck. Yeah, that’ll work.
What happens if there’s a major fire like the Marshall Fire that raged through thousands of acres, homes, businesses, and apartments in mere hours on December 30, 2021. This link shows how much territory the fire covered. This photo was taken near our home, which is about 35 miles to the north.
Author’s personal photo
The fire was so massive that fire trucks from all over the state, Wyoming, AND military from Fort Carson were called in. Which means trucks were coming in hot from well over five hours away.
Now folks, this fire raged heavily for over eight hours and continued burning for days afterwards. You tell me, would an electric vehicle fire truck have been an asset or a detriment to that response?
Now think of what our military is tasked to do. Think of the fleet, Humvees and MRAPS etc turned electric that are called up for a Marshall Fire or a Hurricane Katrina or to go rescue embassy personnel in Benghazi? Again, how long will the battery charge last? What’s the range for these? What happens if the batteries spontaneously combust??
No one knows and they won’t tell us. Why? Because THEY DON’T CARE.
3. Our enemies aren’t impressed by ESG scores.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) April 26, 2023
You can’t charge a tank in the middle of a battle. https://t.co/lvOXCCfg74
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 26, 2023
Mike McDaniel is right. If this magical thinking push continues, things WILL get ugly. It’s all about climate change crap and virtue signaling. Placing our soldiers in danger so that our political powers that be can be virtuous on climate is no big deal to them.
Feature Photo Credit: Live fire exercise in Arizona 2013, via Flickr, cropped and modified
George V says: The Wall Street Journal has an article about our exciting future with electric vehicles, courtesy of Latin America. All the pickup trucks and flag officer’s chauffeured vehicles could be replaced by these.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/electric-vehicle-tiny-bolivia-86b28ebf
What’s not to like?
GWB says: Wait, there’s only 30 EV’s in the pipeline that might arrive by 2035?
No. /facepalm/ He is saying they will have 30 “offerings”, like Fiesta, Leaf, F-150, F-250, etc. He might be including models within a model line – EX, Supreme, Super-Duper-Long-Distance.
It puts our soldiers in danger.
Honestly, not very likely. It most certainly will take money away from other needed acquisitions. But, really, once we start this, our military will be mostly unable to deploy, so they won’t be fighting any wars, and won’t be in any danger. It will bring peace in our time!
30 vehicles
$35 BILLION
at least $116 million per vehicle
Ummmm, your math is off by an order of magnitude. 35 billion divided by 30 is over $1 billion dollars each. (But, again, that’s not really what GM said.)
That’s not so easy to do during field exercises,
Notice that Granholm said non-tactical vehicles. In Army doctrine, a vehicle is non-tactical if it doesn’t go to the field. So, still hauling gas to the field for exercises with tactical vehicles. Now, this will mess with the AF folks who live with the Army, since we regularly abused their rules to use pickups in a dual-use mode, driving them to the field encampment then back on-base to the office or to BK for a quick lunch. Now we’ll get in trouble for charging our “tactical” vehicle at the BX, instead of parked in the BK lot while we eat.
Now translate that into sending those EV’s overseas to areas that DON’T have charging stations, anywhere.
Now, maybe not Afghanistan, but if we’re anywhere long enough to have big bases, we’re going to have non-tactical vehicles, and that WILL become a problem. But not for the tactical vehicles we take over somewhere.
My question is: which aircraft are considered “non-tactical”? How about ships?
How will those vehicles respond in a military response situation?
Now here we see one of those not-well-thought-out bits. If a MP car is a non-tactical vehicle, and it has to respond to an emergency on base or a violation of the perimeter….
(Fortunately, most bases are under 300 miles in circumference.)
it has a diesel generator to run the fire apparatus on the truck
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
Also, what do fire trucks primarily do? Spray water? And what is the nemesis of battery vehicles? And how much is required to put out a vehicle fire when it’s an EV? Yeah… I foresee problems.
What happens if the batteries spontaneously combust??
Well, THEN you drive it into the enemy! Duh.
Yet again, Progressive doctrine and unreality stand head and shoulders above everything else.
You see, the military is a perfectly captive group for social experimentation. So, away we go. And globalism will stop the need for our military to deploy, and anti-colonialism will keep it from deploying in non-UN situations, so it’s an experiment without consequences!
Yeah, a bunch of them really believe this shit. /sigh/
Stephen C says: My friend is an auto mechanic. To work on an EV he is required to put on a hazmat suit.
DC says: Non tactical vehicles are the little white pickup trucks, utility vehicles and sedans used for running errands on or around a military installation.
They don’t have machine gun mounts, camouflage or rocket launchers. And while i think the limitations of EV’s outweigh the advantages, this is a common sense place to use them due to the short distances involved. Still a bad idea though…..$$$$$$$$
SFC D says: Fort Huachuca now has over a dozen solar powered charging stations for government electric vehicles. How many electric vehicles are in use on post? Exactly zero.
John C. says: I could see hybrid military vehicles; they would require less fuel, and if they can run entirely on battery, they could be silent (relatively) and have a low thermal signature. But the military is NOT the place to try to limit energy use, of whatever sort; generally speaking, the military that can expend the most energy is the one to bet on.
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