Telling people that cannot afford to buy gasoline to buy an electric car, is like telling a homeless person to buy a house. How stupid are these politicians?

I like how politicians have to debate the efficacy of something which engineers can simply calculate. Its a no-brainer that the people in charge of this should not be in charge.

Adding an EV to my household (20k miles/yr) raised my electric bill by $50, and cut how much gas I use by about $350.

I hate how they interrupt rather than just let him finish answering the questions being asked. It's equivalent to a kid sticking their fingers in their ears yelling, "I can't hear you." The one asking the questions wasn't having a discussion/conversation, he was more interested in talking at him rather than with him.

Well they already are telling people not to charge electric cars at peak usage hours. Maybe fix the grid before pushing electric cars.

I’m confused is electricity all of the sudden free? If you still have to pay for the electric to run you everyday house hold items, and then add electric vehicles to the mix essentially quadrupling the amount of electric you use, isn’t your electric bill also going to increase by 4 times?

Engineering explained did a video on this and turns out the demand on the grid would only be x1.3 which it is already capable of

I like that both men are being respectful and bringing good points to each other.

Clearly we should all start driving our refrigerators.

Green Energy is not about individual energy independence, it's about specific interests profiting from it. Case in point, a neighbor of mine, an engineer by trade, built a homemade windmill and placed it on the roof of his home to draw in free electricity. The system was well designed and safe. He even posted videos of it on YT (which have since been removed). Over time as interest grew, the township became involved and forced him to remove it, claiming eyesores and various hazards. Goes to show you that everything's cool until someone creates a system INDEPENDENT of corporate and political interests, then they gang-up and squash the little guy.

The point is not to do anything regarding electric cars, the purpose is to allocate a large amount of government money to spend that can line the pockets they want to line. The purpose to every government initiative is TO ALLOCATE MONEY.

It always puzzles me when people toss around figures when it comes to household use and consumption; but in those discussions, nowhere are apartment dwellings being spoken about. Yet, for the countless millions living in apartments, their numbers are significant factors when considering electrical usage with EVs.

I am willing to bet that when this happens they will up the price on electricity. More then it already is.

Why don't they ever ask the question "do you know where electricity comes from?"

A larger trucking company near me wanted to invest in electric trucks for their local intermodal trucks. Then they asked for how much power they needed to get installed at their yard to handle the recharge stations. For 50 trucks it was over 5 Megawatts of power required. My whole town draws less than that even when everyone has their air conditioning on max in the summer.

How hard is it to understand that not every household buys a new car every year. They are talking about new car sales, not every car that exist on America’s roads.

Pete's plan doesn't include "the peasants" having such things as personal vehicles and climate controlled single family dwellings!

It's scary the disconnect between their hopes and dreams and the harsh reality of existence.

I’m a senior citizen, on a fixed income and still employed. My electric bill goes up every year but my income does not, how will seniors in this country survive on this plan?

Alfred E Newman said the grid will need to be upgraded by 2030 to handle all those new cars. Our electric grid has been upgraded very little in the last 60 years. How does he think the grid is going to be upgraded by at least 5 fold increase? We haven't even started to talk about a 4 to 5 increase in our generation capacity.

A similar situation happened here in Sri Lanka with chemical fertilizers recently. The government imposed a 100% ban on chemical fertilizers when the country wasn't ready to go 100% natural. As a result, we're now facing massive food shortages. Politicians in general have no clue on how to accomplish something like this rationally.

And just think about how the electricity is generated.

They didn't say 50% adoption. They are referring to 50% of new car sales.

Have you driven through rural areas? They are not going to be able to afford electric cars, upgrade their homes to charge them, or have the local infrastructure to support them. Will this force even more individuals to our cities and not allow them to live as they choose in low populated areas? Small towns are suffering already.

Electric grid can't support running our current system, so let's force it to 100000x its output. What could go wrong

The thing that boggles my mind the most with these people who are obsessed with going green and driving EV is that they never seem to promote or push the idea of expanding our nuclear energy capabilities at home either.

Love Thomas Massey and how he approaches and issue. Practical. Not ideological.

When commercial and industrial facilities calculate electric energy consumption, the US DOE requires they use a 3x factor to account for the energy used to generate and the transmission line losses. Keep this in mind when you hear anyone talking about kilo-watt hours (kWh). The average EV car has a 68 kWh battery. The average electric consumption of a EV car is 0.314 kWh/mile. The average miles driven per year per car in the US is 14,263 (2022). Doing the math and using the DOE's own 3x factor, the average EV car would consume 13,437 kWh.

They haven't been able to fix CA's electric grid in years, they still have brown and blackouts regularly in the heat of the summer; imagine if they all had 2 electric cars.

Adoption means 'new car sales' - but the replacement rate for cars is something like 5%-10% / year - so, even if all new cars sold are fully electric, it would still take 10 - 20 years for the whole domestic car fleet to become electric...

What about all the people who DON'T have a garage with a power supply and park their cars on the street or a carport? We're talking about a large percent of the population.

If everyone plugs in electric cars by 2030 , its a matter of time electricity rates will rocket up. The installed capacity of the grid is NOT capable to handle the load. Our grid capacity should increase 2000% percentage , rather than going 5-8% every year

When I go to fill my car up, sometimes there is a wait, maybe 10 minutes before it's my turn. Can you imagine how long the wait line will be if it takes over an hour to charge an EV?

"It's going to need to be". Classic upper management answer for a problem they have no ability to solve or even comprehend the enormity of the problem themselves.

“Do you think the grid will be capable of handling electric cars?” “It’s going to need to be” is obvious, but no was his unspoken answer he avoided. We are not ready or even preparing yet, at least so it seems.

What people don't consider is the fact of how high our home electric bill will get even if that home doesn't have a car charger! Its simple supply and demand!

I remember when about 10 years ago, a city in Indiana decided to have their entire fleet of vehicles (police cars, fire trucks, public works, etc.) - just over 400 of them, switch to run purely on ethanol because that could be produced easily form all the corn grown in that state. So, the city bought all these brand-new vehicles that GM made to run purely on ethanol and after they were delivered, the city realized that the closest ethanol refinery and storage facility was over 400 miles away and the vehicle cold be used until some large tanks were installed closer to the city yard. This is the kind of stuff the politicians do - don't think ahead.

The sad thing is how we, as a society, always have an "all or nothing" mentality. There are good points about gas cars. And electric cars. And hydrogen cars. Give people a choice and this will work out. Force people down one road, so to speak, and many will rebel.

I spend $1.65 for a full charge of my Leaf. In doing the math, a gas car would have to achieve 550 MPG to match my EV's efficiency. And let's NOT forget the petroleum used to deliver the fuel to the gas station and of course all the refining energy costs and finally, sending money to support dubious regimes.

Anyone remember when the USA actively wanted to be the best, and #1 at everything?

As a power lineman I can tell you it probably take 50+ years to upgrade my local system to be able to support electric cars in every house.

States are now having rolling blackouts that didn't have a problem before! This is already a big problem now!

The average 3 bedroom American home has a 100 amp electrical service. You would not be able to charge 2 cars in that home. If you had adult children drivers, they would not be able to charge their cars. It will cost between $5,000 to $10,000 or more to upgrade the electrical service depending on the age of the home and location of the panel in relationship to where the charger is needed.

There's evidently no possibility to power up these vehicles for long, no resources to support no grid, whatsoever, yet there are people who find the comparison of a fridge to an EV improper... YOU TRY TO GIVE THEM THE "FULL PICTURE" AND THEY LOOK FOR "HEADPHONES"...MURICA 3.0

Oh yeah, I forgot. I'm driving a 15 year old car that mostly sits in my garage because I'm on a fixed income and can't afford to go anywhere with the price of gas. Hey Pete, gonna buy me an electric car?

I want to here the question “where is all this “electricity” going to come from?” Let me guess 🤔 coal and oil I presume? Yes and natural gas. Oh while we're at it let's make everything from plastic. We can just plant more plastic plants. Boom renewable!

The point is to make the middle class hurt. This is not ignorance, this is a deliberate action to hurt the lower classes. I just hope I'm alive to witness the revolution.

Why has no one noticed we dont have the lithium reserves to make two billion eletric cars. People need to stop drinking the "green" Kool-Aid.

He sums it up perfectly, “…pain and suffering for the middle class.” And I guarantee that falls on deaf ears. These political elitists are completely out of touch.

As an engineer, if you do not set a goal, you will never get there. if you set a goal, you may miss a deadline, but you reach your objective a lot quicker. Whenever you set a time limit 'realistically' you are jsut like the student with a report due, you wait until the last moment, then write it. If you make the timeliness close enough, it is obvious you can not wait a day before starting to work on it. If you start working on it, you finish sooner. yes, it IS the job of politicians to set goals, and then to provide resources to the people who get it done. Look at NASA. they commonly have delays, but they still make progress and get to their goals.

Maybe a solve would be to make us less dependent on cars…

This man is spot on. I work in the hvac indistry and thenmass adiptuon of heat pumps over gas heat is having a like result.

I would expect. I would think. It’s going to need to be. He doesn’t know. Unqualified and unprepared He’s in charge of transportation for this country.

I HAVE THE SOLUTION: To avoid building more power plants, everyone that owns an electric car(s) must charge them ONLY from solar panels or wind turbines.

They didn't cover that the "zero emissions vehicles" are powered by fossil fuel burning power plants! Oh, yes and that the batteries are a TOXIC NIGHTMARE to dispose of! Wait, did I mention that when they catch fire that they are almost impossible to put out and that the power grid is already deficient and outdated?

In Sweden, I saw a study showing that if we were to change all (100%) cars on our roads today to electrical vehicles, they would only use about 8% of the total electricity usage. Also, the vast majority of the charging takes place during the night hours when the overall consumption is very low, actually it helps to balance the grid. This argument of the grid not being able to support electrical cars is a myth. At least in Sweden.

Having designed power line upgrades for power companies for 20 years, I can tell you this: the customer is going to pay through the nose for the upgrades needed for all these electric vehicles.

Massie knows what he's talking about. He's wired his whole house to run off a Tesla battery. He graduated from MIT for mechanical engineering, so I'd take his word of Pete.

Not to mention electric bills…. I can cover several small gasoline purchases each month vs one very large bill monthly.

Electrifying all car trafic rises demand about 30%. Easy to calculate with the numbers for total use if fossil fuel. Easy to adopt to in the timeframes for electrification. Normal rise is about 4% per year. With addition of electrification at these timeframes is about 6%.

When Airforce One and our military is running on this miracle known as battery power, give me a call. I will then be more serious about owning an electric car.

The Goal of a competent administration should have been to have an Electric Grid capable of 50% Electric Vehicles by 2030 and 100% by 2035. Attempting to create additional Demand before you can handle enough Supply is idiotic at best. Additionally whenever they talk about cost of energy being cheaper with electric they are referring to current electric rates. Building a Power Production & Grid of that magnitude will be a massive expense which will either have to be paid for in Taxes if Federally Funded or in an Increase in Rate for Electricity if Privately Funded. Show me the math on the cost of upgrading the grid factored into the cost of operating an electric vehicle. The fact that they haven’t even acknowledged what this will cost should be incredibly alarming for anyone.

This is why people with electric cars normally have some solar panels. It's not much but it does reduce the strain on the power lines

The argument is not whether the grid needs upgrading, the question should be WHY is the US taxpayer paying for the upgrades while utility company shareholders and top executives get huge bonuses and bigger returns. Utilities begrudgingly pay for system upgrades and almost only after failure and all we hear is how the rates need to be increased because of aging electrical infrastructure. We are swapping out one dirty industry for another- lithium, cobalt, and other materials used in electric car batteries are not benign.

Without getting into the argument of the subject, I would just like to say how ecstatic I was to watch a video of two politicians debating like educated adults. Both had valid points, both were respectful of the other without shouting over each other, without shouting at all. Gave me a small bit of hope, that once we get the top of their lungs nutjobs voted out, we can get back to this type of leadership in our government.

Refrigerators are one of the most efficient appliances. There is a reason why the preferred way to charge electric cars is a 50 amp circuit. You might as well be arc welding 6 hours a day.

So basically Electricity scarcity, brown outs and multitudes higher monthly bills will be our future. Looks like progress to me.

Massie is quickly becoming my favorite Congressman. I like his focus on facts, his polite style and willingness to allow the questions to be answered, not trying to talk over the other person until giving them some time to respond, but then pointing out more facts…. and how there will be consequences for failure to implement a science based solution. I wish BuyMeThen, BuyAJudge and GrannyHome would emphasize getting solar on rooftops …making average income homeowners more energy self sufficient and reducing the load on the grid as the first solution towards a greener future. Once in place, people will want to shift to electric cars. The other opportunity would be to deploy NASA engineers to developing the ideal blend of electric hybrid cars and trucks that can plug in and run electric, but also have the capability to burn gas or hydrogen or other fuels and continue to function in cold conditions. Why would a household need two cars with 300 mile EV range if the daily round trip is typically about 50 miles? Why not focus on 50 miles EV range and a small fuel engine capable of extending the range via fossil fuels when traveling longer distance…. much like an on board generator….and install 120 volt electric outlets in parking lots that will help boost the 50 mile range while the car is parked? This would facilitate 100 pct EV power at much lower cost ( the batteries in cars are a massive proportion of total costs) ….. and most of the daily drive needs are well below the EV range. We need to optimize EVs for cost and have a hybrid fuel option to go longer distances. Recharge and refuel time also much shorter with a small EV battery. We have to get smarter about the solutions rather than using massive quantities of rare minerals. Speaking of, the battery technology is already been figured out that could replace lithium such as liquid metal batteries. Mandate cheaper battery chemistries and make them open source no patent constraints. The BuyMeThen administration has made nothing but bad decisions.

I kept waiting for him to ask "And where is this electricity going to come from? How is this electricity going to be produced?"

"You can't buy a pool if you don't have neither the land to put the pool nor the water to fill it". The response: "If we think like that, we will never have those beautiful swimming pools we all want". Nah, that's not how you do things.

How do you compare a refrigerator with a car? WTF. Try comparing an elevator with a ladder. Which is cheaper to run? Stupidity is rampant in this country.

He said it exactly, political science. Politicians aren't scientists no matter how much they believe they are. The fact her is the grid could not sustain electric vehicles.

“Obviously, some of this gets outside of my lane…”. Finally, the wizard of South Bend said something truthful.

And I can't wait for someone to try and power their entire house as advertised. Then not only no power to the house when that $25k truck battery dies and now they have no transportation. And then they have to replace the battery on the truck. Are all you people that believe this electric car BS somehow impaired?

This is the same conversation we had 100 years ago when we moved from horses to cars. It's always infrastructure. Then is was "where do I get gas?", now its "where do charge?" It's all the same conversations

"It's going to need to be"....WOW... As an engineering who works specifically in this space for an electric utility this is like asking for time travel by 2030. The incompetency is astonishing. Why isn't an engineer in this position?

The amount of carbon energy it takes to source the rare earth minerals to even make electric cars is insane. Wind farms are just as much if not worse.

Next question, "What is California's plan to dispose of the 25 years old solar panels and toxic materials within them that they subsidized in the late nineties?" Follow up question, "Shouldn't we identify and plan for these future challenges before we create them?"

There is a fundamental difference between 50% of all new vehicles sold annually and 50% of the entire fleet of all existing vehicles. In as much as vehicles now have a lifespan of 20 years or more, 50% of all new vehicles that equates 5% of all existing vehicles. So the increased demand for electricity although very real will be gradual.

It´s not about the numbers. People stand for something not because they dealt with it well-founded, but because the WANT to stand for it due to emotional or ideological reasons. Facts do not count anymore.

What they are not telling is how much diesel fuel its going to take to run the generators to charge all those cars.

At what point did we give the federal government the right to determine what kind of car we can buy. When electric cars make sense people will buy them. Right now the tech just isn’t good enough.

We need to build solar farms outside of every city.

But the problem is that the grid can’t hold up now

This is what the people of the US need to understand before election. Excellent job Senator!

25 times more than the refrigerator. I think a question was missed: "And do you actually think the average American will be able to afford this electric bill?"

Which countries that have figured it out? Certainly the UK and most of Europe hasn't figured it out. The majority have no intention of buying an EV and see their costs for energy go out of control.

They have absolutely no idea what it is going to take realistically to implement this in all communities across country..not just new areas or cities but rural too...new power lines EVERYWHERE...and the power plants needed to increase consumption levels is extraordinary. THey are smoking crack...

This is the same “Electric Czar” that was caught driving to work in DC, getting out and getting on a bicycle the rest of the way, so he’d look like he was doing the right thing.

This is the craziest stuff I've ever heard most people dont want eletric cars .

The power grid needs to be nationalised.

Anyone with any tech background can add up the carbon cost to produce an EV, run it to its max life, and then dispose of it, and an EV is horribly carbon expensive compared to direct gasoline. To say nothing of the direct environmental devastation required to build these vehicles.

Our infrastructure is so wildly lagging behind being able to handle this “ideal electric vehicle” situation by 2030 its scary. Can’t just switch to 50% electric by 2030 then figure the rest out as we go

Beware of politicians who have quick simple answers to complex issues

So an electric truck going? Cross country has to stop every 300 miles and waste two hours to get charge, commonsense says we ain’t gonna get our shit for a long time.

As a former distribution engineer for an electric utility, I went into a DOE national lab to help keep sanity in the mix. I did see, frustratingly, that the lawyers and polisci folks push me aside and taught a complete line of BS (to the state PUC staffers).

...Rep. Massie needed to ask Pete where all of this electricity comes from. We all know most electricity comes from fossil fuels...so, essentially, EVs are coal-burning vehicles.

What the questioner is omitting is the concurrent/peak usage. Aircon is often used at the same time, ie afternoon and evening. Cars can be charged overnight when grid usage is low. We're already seeing electricity retailers offering super-cheap pricing (like 75% discount) midnight to 6am for electric vehicle households for this reason. MG4 home charges (240V single phase) at 6.6kwh, my ducted aircon runs at 6.3kwh. But they'll rarely be run together.

Ol' Pete there was caught driving to work instead of biking, what a shocker that he's a phoney

When Petey says "other countries have figured this out" --- just who exactly has figured this out? There is no other country comparable to the budgetary concerns and global responsibilities of the US.