Common Sense for USA Citizens
You may not know this, but you have the power to significantly improve the security of the USA just by your vehicle buying preference. A fast growth in electric vehicle sales will signal lower oil demand and, at the same time, justify more engineering investments in a fast growth consumer market. I am asking that you consider being a pioneer in this new market and, as will be clear below, a patriot for the USA.
Reduced oil demand will lower the risk of war as Russia and the Middle East will have less money to fund new cold war nuclear weapons, less money for terror and lower global demand for oil will lower the chance of yet another Middle East war over oil supplies.
During the 70’s, I was a US Navy officer in the Navy Nuclear Power Program. One of the missions was to provide a platform for certain delivery of nuclear weapons in the event of a war. Nuclear Submarines are very expensive platforms, so are the ballistic missiles carried by submarines. Today, Russia is investing in very expensive upgrades to their nuclear weapon delivery systems with new generation missiles designed to defeat the USA current defense. These efforts are largely funded by oil profits. On a smaller scale, Iran is investing oil profits into both nuclear weapons development and delivery systems.
The USSR was, in part, economically driven from the cold war. Reduced oil profits could repeat this for Russia’s development of a new nuclear weapon delivery platform.
It might be worth considering the relative risk of Russia’s development compared to say Iran or North Korea. Russian weapons use Hydrogen Bombs, each about 1000 times more powerful than Iran and N Korea’s fission bombs. Ball park, when you consider Russia weapons delivery platforms and relative power of their bombs, Russian weapons systems exceed 10,000 times the danger and risk to the USA.
How much would oil demand have to fall to make a difference? It is not the absolute demand decrease that will significantly hamper Russia development. It is the projected rate of market decline. Russia needs investments from the west to replace their decaying USSR oil infrastructure. These are massive investments over 10 years. Western firms are less likely to invest in Russian oil field development if the market trend for oil demand is projected to continuously and quickly decline over the next 10 years.
That is the trend you can affect today as the market for high mile per gallons vehicles today is relatively small, so even a small decrease in oil sales due to higher sales of high Miles per Gallon electric vehicles will register as a large trend toward a shrinking oil market.
In addition, there is another dynamic to consider. Increased sales of hybrid or plug in hybrid or pure electric cars will attract more investments to supply the new fast growth market. Just like the cell phone and microprocessor, each new generation of high technology products offers better performance and lower price, leading to higher market growth, which leads to higher investments, which drives growth ever higher.
As an Intel engineer, I know the power of continuous improvement and the large investment bet needed for each new generation of products. The investment bet is never based on current sales. It is based the projected growth from continuously improving price, performance and features. In microprocessors, several billion dollars are needed for each new generation. Much of that investment is in new manufacturing technology, investments that start 3 years prior to product release.
The same effect was and is true for cell phones. Right?
Early electric vehicles are decreasing in price by about 50% over 8 years. For example, an $80,000 Tesla model S in 2012 had 265 miles range, while a 2019 Tesla model 3 for $41.000 offered 250 mile range. The model S in 2020 for $75,000 now offers 400 miles range. Improving price and performance will continue and you can influence the pace. If the growth rate of the market is higher than expected, more investment dollars will be available and the pace of improvements will be faster. If so, then the market will grow even faster. And so will the rate of decline in oil profits for Russian and Iran weapons development aimed at the US.
I am asking you to consider being a pioneer in the new market for a win-win-win. A win for you as you will find that today’s electric cars are more fun to drive and have a lower cost of ownership. A win for the USA as Russia and the Middle East will have lower oil profits to fund weapons aimed at the US.
I am suggesting that you consider hybrid, plug in hybrid and pure electric vehicles. All three types are Patriotic purchases and will accelerate our strategic advantage in the world. While relatively new products in a new market, you will be surprised at how much fun they are to drive and even the early models have proven to be more dependable and lower cost to own than conventional gas powered vehicles.
There are additional and significant benefits to you and the USA. Your total energy bill to heat your home could significantly decline. And the USA will be expanding jobs to support the new high growth market.
How will your total energy bill decline? The improvements in battery cost and life require billions of investment, especially in manufacturing tooling. That investment bet will be accelerated if the market grow rate jumps due to your and like minded individuals purchasing today’s products. Today, in the lab, there are battery technologies that exceed the life of a vehicle, if the battery were only used to power the vehicle.
In field tests today, there are systems that purchase electric power when demand is low and sell it back to the grid when demand is high. The power is stored in vehicle batteries. Why is this significant? Wind and Solar power generation investment goes to waste when the demand is low. But if stored in batteries and then provided when needed, you effectively improve the return on investment from the wind and solar power. Your cost for power will go down.
Wind and solar power are already cheaper than coal fired power plants. With investments in battery technology and battery manufacturing processes, it will be cost effective to integrate vehicle batteries into the grid. Just like Apple invented itunes networks to improve the value of phones, vehicle batteries could be integrated with power networks to improve the value the customer.
I know it is not an easy decision to buy a different or new type of product. But given the benefits to the USA, you might find it worth taking the leap.
When I purchased a Tesla, I knew it would push the development forward for the reasons I mentioned above- market growth attracts additional investment. What I did not know was how much fun it is to drive. By the way, I drove 17,000 miles in 9 months and only used charging outside of my home 7 times, each time for 10 minutes. For me, it was more fun to drive and I felt like a patriot.
So here is the win-win-win for you. Consider high MPG as important to USA security. I am not saying what you should buy. But be open to investigating high MPG alternatives.
