Progress is a solid sign of creative minds still at work, giving us healthy reliability that people are still pushing the boundaries of new possibilities, turning dreams into a reality. New ventures can be scary, but moving forward prevents life from falling into a mundane rut, causing us to look to the future instead of grieving the past.
David Straughan brings to light a concept that is far from new but currently growing at an all time high; automotive in Electric Vehicles (EV). With longtime background as a Senior Automotive Journalist, Straughan found a particular interest in EV’s as he has pushed his research beyond the minimal finding personal interest in the subject and leading him into soul ambassador on the newest vehicle technology.
“EV’s tend to be a lot more reliable in the long term. They just have fewer parts” States Straughan, “I do think that EV’s provide opportunity to have a cleaner environment, yet when talking about the environmental effects, emissions is just one component of that and usage is another”
Though EV’s have been a wave of the future for a series of years now Straughan expresses what he thinks is one of the biggest reasons why EV’s hav not yet triumphed over gas powered vehicles yet is because the warrantee system isn’t beneficial to EV’s quite yet, where he states that the warrantees EV’s require “just don’t exist” as he puts it.
According to Straughan, a warrantee system that was built upon gas powered motors simply don’t translate to EV’s. But that is subject to change as the EV industry increases, “Also right now you have a warrantee industry that’s now at 8% market shares in new cars sold, and that’s growing fast”
Of course there’s a greater deal of withdrawal from an automotive buyer then the disadvantages of warrantee alone. In our Nickel Belt region the climate is subject to drastic sub-zero temperatures in which when asked about the benefits EV’s has in the cold weather Straughan admitted the struggles Northerners may face.
“It is an observed effect that EV vehicles have less range in colder weather. That is a big issue” Says Straughan, “There are optimal temperatures for the chemical reaction that generates the power of an EV vehicle, colder then that and they tend to slow down”
A following problem that many tend to question is that a full charge can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 12 hours depending on the life of your car. This opposed to gasoline engines, giving you a full tank before you have a chance to buy chips at the checkout. Straughan, dressed this concern, in which his answer to the problem was; “There is just so much that they still need to figure out. And in some ways it’s scary, but in another aspect it’s exciting to see new changes. Progress can be messy, understand that there’s a lot of things that haven’t been accounted for. Like everything I think people need to understand that with any sort of progress there is going to be casualties”
On April 26, 2023 it was last announced by the International Energy Agency that the EV market began an uphill expansion from 7% in 2021 to nearly triple by 2023 coming out at 15%. This predicting the market to meet a 35% increase by 2030. According to an analysis by Boomgerg Green, North America crossed a crucial threshold beginning of 2023 peaking at a 50% increase in the first nine months.
“It’s gonna happen” Straughan concludes, “Progress happens. It’s forced. I think it’s better to work through the troubleshooting rather then pretend that everything is going to go just how we plan”
~Matthias J. Johnson is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Thompson Citizen. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
