Electric Automobiles: Putting The Naysayers To Rest

A friend in Alabama, whom is the quintessential example of a Trump supporter – a White, poorly-educated, hard-shell, far right-wing, Christian Baptist Evangelical RINO – recently sent this to me.

I have no idea where he found it – I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say – though I rather suspect that, more likely than not, he found it on Facebook somewhere. (And indeed, that is the case.) So I can’t, and won’t attempt, to vouch for the claims made in the accompanying description, which is, as it’s read, but an oblique, limp, halfhearted, milquetoast denunciation of renewable energy and Electric Vehicles – and a phenomenally poor one, at that.

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“This is a boneyard near Paris, France with hundreds of electric powered cars. Mind you these are only cars used by the City of Paris and not personal vehicles. All of these have the same issue,…. the battery storage cells have given out and need replaced. Why not just replace them you ask? Well two reasons. First the battery storage cells cost almost double what the vehicle cost new, and second no landfill or disposals will allow the batteries to be disposed of there. So these green fairy tale electric cars are all sitting in vacant lots while their batteries drain toxins into the ground.
“Still think we need to go green???”

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My reply follows:

How many junkyards are there in Madison County?
How many junkyards are there in Alabama?
How many junkyards are there in the United States?

I don’t know the answer to those questions, and I doubt that you do, either. But the point is, that there are FAR, FAR – EXCEEDINGLY MORE – standard automobiles than that small handful depicted.

And, there are environmental laws that govern, and regulate those junkyards, just as they will with electric vehicles (EV)… which also contain batteries – lead/acid type.

I’ve been to a few junkyards in my life, just as I have to various battery stores, such as Interstate brand on Governor’s Drive. They recycle dead batteries. In fact, it’s foolish not to recycle. The same will happen with batteries for EVs.

But the greater point is this:
The writer presumes that EVERYTHING must be disposed of in landfills. That’s preposterous hogwash. Recycling is a HUGE multi-billion dollar business. From cardboard boxes, to wood, to paper, to glass, to metal of all types – specially aluminum – recycling has created jobs, fortunes, businesses, and tax revenue.

And frankly, we would do well to have, and in my opinion, we should have mandatory recycling laws. It’s done in other, primarily European nations, and we can, and should do it in America.

The Bible talks about waste (and not kindly):
“He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.”
Proverbs 18:9 (KJV)

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Further investigation into the matter revealed the following, which was published on Snopes, by investigator David Mikkelson, on 16 May 2021:

“In 2021, social media users began circulating photographs purporting to show a “boneyard” near Paris, France, that supposedly housed hundreds of derelict electric vehicles, the automobiles supposedly having been abandoned and left to decay because their battery storage cells had “given out” and were too expensive to replace:

“Although the photographs are real; the accompanying description is misleading in multiple ways. This item is, in effect, an example of a failed business model rather than a failed technology.

“Back in 2011, the Autolib program offered the service of providing thousands of electric vehicles in the Paris area under a car-sharing program. Subscribes to the service were able to use the any of the fleet of 4,000 BlueCar cars as they wished, paying a fee each time depending upon how long they used the vehicle. At its peak in 2016, the program boasted 110,000 subscribers.

“However, Autolib slid from that peak into decline, due to a number of factors: Four thousand cars for over 100,000 subscribers meant many users were unable to find vehicles when they wanted them; users frequently left the cars dirty inside and damaged; and competition from ride-hailing apps such Uber eroded the customer base. By 2018, Autolib was running debts of tens of millions of euros and the program was discontinued in June of that year.

“In the end, most of the BlueCars in better condition were purchased and re-sold to new users or scrapped for parts. But a private company eventually stored some of the cars in not-so-good condition in a lot in an industrial area near Romorantin in Loir-et-Cher, as seen above — not because the vehicles’ storage cells had failed, but because the Autolib car-sharing program not to be a viable long-term business model.

“It is also not the case that the abandoned Autolib BlueCars’ batteries are “draining toxins into the ground.” As noted in reports on the subject, the batteries have been removed from the pictured vehicles:

“Despite protests from the Bolloré group, the multinational had to evacuate the 4,000 unwanted autolibs from the Paris region and urgently store them. They were then sold in several batches and two companies now hold most of the remaining fleet: the Breton company Autopuzz, former subcontractor of Bolloré, which resells these vehicles throughout France, and the company Atis Production, whose manager Paul Aouizerate does not want to reveal his plans for the Autolib parked in Loir-et-Cher.

“The businessman also regrets the publication of photos of his vehicles in early March, shared by a blogger passionate about electric cars, who was amazed at such a landscape. The images became widespread on Facebook and Twitter, with internet users questioning how these cars can be reused and wondering about the potential risk of soil pollution they pose.

““Our vehicles are properly stored. The firefighters are aware that the construction site is well organized. All batteries have been removed, [and] the connections are isolated” [said Paul Aouizerate, Atis Production Manager].”

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The Code of Alabama contains regulatory language concerning junkyards.

[NOTE TO THE READER:
Title 13A of the Alabama Code is the Criminal title, while Title 40 is Revenue and Taxation. There are other statutes and laws regulating, and governing various aspects and operations of salvage businesses and junkyards.]

Section 40-12-116

Junk dealers.

(a) Each junk dealer shall pay the following license tax: in all places of less than 1,000 inhabitants, whether incorporated or not, $10; in towns of 1,000 inhabitants and less than 3,000 inhabitants, or within 10 miles thereof, $20; in cities and towns of 3,000 and less than 10,000 inhabitants, or within 10 miles of the city limits thereof, $30; in cities and towns of 10,000 and less than 20,000 inhabitants, or within 10 miles of the city limits thereof, $50; in cities and towns of 20,000 inhabitants and less than 50,000 inhabitants, or within 10 miles of the city limits thereof, $75; and in cities and towns of 50,000 inhabitants and over or within 10 miles of the city limits thereof, $150. Each junk dealer, his clerk, agent or employee shall keep a book open to inspection in which he shall make entries of all articles of railroad iron or brass, pieces of machinery and plumbing material, automobiles, automobile tires, parts, and accessories, or other articles purchased by him, together with the name of the party from whom purchased; and, upon failure to keep such book or record and produce it on demand, the dealer shall forfeit his license. Each junk dealer, his clerk, agent or employee to whom any new and unused articles or railroad brass and iron, pieces of machinery, automobiles, automobile tires, parts and accessories, or other articles shall be presented for sale shall notify the police authorities that such articles are offered for sale within a reasonable time thereafter, otherwise, his license shall be forfeited. Any junk dealer whose place of business is within 10 miles of more than one city shall pay the license as provided herein for the larger of the cities within 10 miles.

(b) Any person or company operating car crushing equipment, other than licensed junk dealers, automotive dismantlers, and parts recyclers and secondary metals recyclers as defined in Section 13A-8-30, shall pay a license fee, on an annual basis, of two hundred dollars ($200) per piece of car crushing equipment. The provisions of this title permitting the payment of a half-year license after April 1 shall not apply to this section. Furthermore, any additional car crushing equipment acquired during the license year shall require an additional license in accordance with this section. Anyone operating car crushing equipment without a license shall be guilty of a Class C felony and such equipment shall be subject to forfeiture to law enforcement. Upon proper process and hearing as required by the State of Alabama in forfeiture proceedings, including notifying any lienholders, the car crushing equipment may be seized and held for forfeiture, as described in Section 32-8-87. In addition to any punishment rendered, each person convicted shall be subject to the laws regarding restitution of the state. For purposes of this section, car crushing equipment means a machine that compacts or flattens a motor vehicle into a crushed motor vehicle and is designed to be transported on a highway; and a crushed motor vehicle means a motor vehicle, the frame or unibody of which is compacted or flattened so that it no longer resembles any particular year, model, or make of motor vehicle and is less than half of the motor vehicle’s original volume as measured in cubic feet.
(Acts 1935, No. 194, p. 256; Code 1940, T. 51, §541; Act 2011-633, p. 1507, §2.)

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While neither definitive, official, nor authoritative, the iScrapApp website states that in Alabama, there are 126 scrap/metal recycling/salvage yards.

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Tesla, an electric automobile manufacturer is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, is a publicly-traded entity – stock symbol TLSA – which stock is trading in the well-upwards of $500/share figure, a market capitalization of $568.11B, with stock holdings distributed as follows:
19.63% of Shares Held by All Insider
43.17% of Shares Held by Institutions
53.71% of Float Held by Institutions
2,651 Number of Institutions Holding Shares.

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Car and Driver magazine writes this about Tesla’s models:

“The Model S is a hot-rod: in our testing, we’ve measured zero-to-60-mph times as quick as 2.8 seconds, and a 2018 100D went 270 miles in our highway-range test. The smaller, less pricey Model 3 Performance isn’t far behind, shooting to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds.”