FACT CHECKED: Jeremy Vine “Electric cars are the biggest con trick inflicted on society.”

I think electric cars are a complete contract and then theres this if all the cars are on electric theyd suck all the electricity. Oh now, normally we would roll our eyes and ignore this kind of debatable opinion, but because its getting quite a lot of views, we thought wed. Do a special little chatet and a bit of an electrifying.com fact check, because we want to make sure that youre armed with the fact when someone asks you about it down the pub, and that would be the facts. But before we argue with the facts, dont forget to subscribe to the channel and switch those notifications on, because if you want to listen to a balanced view, full of facts, then this is the channel to come to. Okay, so lets begin you try not to get too Im already crossed. I know you dont want to see when hes angry, you really dont. I think electric cars are a complete contract. The biggest contract inflicted on society since the invention of the internal combustion engine and its all about control its because eventually, a lot of politicians who have a certain point of view want to force cars off the road altogether. So they invented the electric car wow. They invented the electric car Im, not so sure, Ive ever met or heard, or seen a politician that I would consider to be smart enough to have invented the electric car. How about you, or indeed, one old enough? Because, as far as Im aware – and I mean this is just research that Ive done by doing research, the first electric car – albeit a crude version – was invented by a Scottish man called Robert Anderson, and that was In 1832, 1832, 1832 thats quite a long time ago.

Certainly before the previous conservative government um, in fact, the first electric vehicle that had its own power source, which would be a battery yeah and that also had a driver so essentially a car. Although it didnt look, much like a car was tested in Paris and on the street in 1881 by a French inventor called Gustav trouvet, I love your accent. Thank you. Stop it by the turn of the century. In fact, electric cars were so popular in the US that 40 of cars were powered by steam. I think we should go back to steam, itd be brilliant. No, we shouldnt 22 buy gasoline and 38 of all cars in the US at the turn of the century. Not the 20th – this would be the 19th century were powered by electricity Yeah. So basically they were around a long time before the internal combustion engine, and they were definitely not invented by a politician. Lets move on its immoral that children in Africa have to go into minds and mine Cobble to make the batteries, so the Democratic Republic of Congo is responsible for about 70 percent of the worlds Cobalt supplies right and in there there is a thing called Artisan mining, Which is smaller producers? They think around 200 000 people work in this sector. It Supplies about 15 20 percent of the Cobalt that comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and that is largely unregulated and sadly, there are a lot of examples of child labor being used in that around 40 000 children.

They think so there is a grain of Truth. There is an absolute grain of Truth in it. However, the interesting thing is that Cobalt is a very expensive mineral, so all of the people that are making car batteries are currently trying to get it out of their batteries, so the technology is moving away from the use of cobalt, theyre, also being very careful about Where it comes from so Supply chains and car manufacturing are changing. Bmw, for instance, as one of the biggest car companies in the world, insists that all of its Cobalt comes from either Morocco or Australia, where it can be ethically and responsibly. Mined. Tesla is going away entirely from using Cobalt in its batteries. Okay and – and you know, that strategy of moving the supply chain does work, but it also threatens the livelihood of many of those smaller producers and communities in Congo. So there is an organization called the fair Cobalt Alliance and theyre working with those smaller producers to show them that you know. Child labor is not the way its not the way and to help generally improve working conditions um in in Congo. So, are we going to give him that sort of sort of I think yeah sort of? But you know it wasnt a fully searched fact, but kind of weve also got to just as another sort of rebuttal. Youve got to remember that petrol and Diesel also use Cobalt in the refining process, so everybody has to clean up their supply chains.

Industry needs to do better across the board agreed. Okay. Next one, the batteries are enormously heavy. An electric car is twice the weight of an ordinary car, so much so that some British cities have had to stop electric cars parking in multi story, car Parks, because the weight of them will collapse the car park. Im really not sure this is quite funny. It is quite funny we fact check this quite thoroughly. Yeah we did, we really did we have searched. We have scoured weve, scoured, multi story, car Parks across the UK. We actually cant find any multi story. Car parks in the UK that have banned electric cars because its not true, however, there was a report from a chap called Chris waffles, thats, great name, its a great name. There, Chris is a member of the British Parking Association which represents car park owners and he claimed in the Daily Mail that car Parks designed to take the weight of cars, like the Ford Cortina from the 1970s, are likely to collapse under the weight of electric cars, Which might be the basis for the rather strong claim in that video? So why dont we unpick what Chris waffles has got to say: okay, so theres! No doubt the cars have got a lot heavier since the 1970s. If you think what for Cortina, which is kind of an average sort of family car would be back in the day, I know you know this, because you wrote this didnt, you and you fact check it, but it weighed about 900 kilos so substantially less than a Ton so its super light, but, as things have got more luxurious, theyve got more advanced dry resistance systems.

Theyve got airbags, theyve got crash safety, things like say, whats, the most popular selling car in Britain at the moment, thats a normalized car, its a Nissan Qashqai that weighs about 1.4 ton, so 1400 kilos a leaf which is also a five door. Hatchback type thing that weighs 1 580 kilograms. Now a Tesla Model 3 is 1700, but a diesel. Bmw 3 Series, which is again a kind of average car, is 1600. So, while electric cars are undoubtedly heavier than a similar or comparable petrol or diesel, not by much in fact, theres one or two that are the same way so um an electric mini, is pretty much the same weight as a normal one yeah. So my question would be what about those big SUVs? Then Land Rover Discovery two and a half tons, yeah theyre big. Remember they should ban that. Maybe Chris waffles needs to have a word with the discovery owners, but listen in the spirit of being completely thorough and fact checking with real fat. We asked the British Parking Association for a list of all the UK car parks that have currently banned electric cars Music. Yes, they said, and I quote there is no evidence to show that this is happening. Lets move on tires now. Did you know that the cars are so heavy that they Shred the tires much much more quickly than ordinary cars, and therefore the the fiber from the rubber is is sprayed out into the air all the time right, the fiber from the rubber interesting take on that Now there is indeed – or there was a slight concern that, because electric cars are heavier, they will produce more fine dust which is known as particulates from the tires because of the extra weight, but the brakes actually last a lot longer with an electric car, because you Capture some of that energy used in braking through regeneration.

So you dont have the brake pads rubbing against the discs. So you produce less particulates and all tires produce particulates, and there is a huge amount of work being done by the tire industry and that there is a big conference happening in the US at the moment, which is looking into this very thing. As for the tires themselves, quick fit who they know a bit about tires, dont, they quite fake they did. They said recently that electric car tires do actually seem to be lasting longer than those fitted to petrol or diesel cars. I reckon they should know, because you know you cant get better than a quick fit. No next one: okay, we would need 10 new nuclear power stations to provide the power to make the cars run. Ten ten ten new nuclear power stations already were going to have possibly power strikes over a bad winter. Weve had a mild winter. So far, if all the cars are on electric theyd suck all the electricity. How many times have I heard that they would suck it all out? Itll all be gone immediately, Oh wrong, wrong! Wrong from that is not going to happen. I roll my eyes so hard when I hear that, but I can see out of the back of my own head and it is categorically wrong wrong. Electric cars are actually going to be part of the solution for balancing the grade, because they are just a big battery that you can store energy in, so you can put energy into it and take energy out of it.

Do you know who knows about this? I do know who knows about it. We know a man who does lets hear from him. My name is Graeme Cooper and Im head of future markets at National Grid, and and what is your specialist subject? My specialist subject is transport decarbonization and the growth in offshore wind start off with a first electric car s, make the National Grid melt. Simply no, you cant argue with graham from the grid, because he knows his facts. He does so. No, you dont need to worry about that one. Should we talk about batteries again, though, lets do it back to batteries, but do you know where the biggest lithium mine is in the world right now? I thought I would always go Congo for that Mike youre, going to tell me its in this country. No, where is it? Do you know where it is in your bottom right? Uh hes got a massive lithium mine in his bottom drawer, which were not going to comment upon, but it does sort of it just sort of say that she means normal batteries. These. These things that I just got from which these are not going to help roam. Your electric car to be blunt, but I would say that the Lithium ion batteries that you find in things like portable Hoovers phones, laptops all of this kind of stuff. They can be recycled along with electric cars and bikes thats, where the things are going to help.

That is very true, not these about five percent of the worlds Lithium ion batteries that are found in those appliances, uh currently being recycled worldwide and thats, because there is an awful lot of chemistry and Engineering know how needed to pull it off. But theres been a company started called Redwood, which is really interesting. So it was the former and chief technology officer at Tesla yeah and they have figured out how to separate all the chemicals that are currently locked into the 600 000 tons of Lithium ion batteries that we get through every year its early days. But they reckon that by 2025 they can separate enough of the precious metals from things like these laptops and vacuums and phones and yes to help produce a batteries for more than a million electric cars a year early days, though. But yes that sounds quite promise sing. These things from your bottom drawer, no, no, but do recycle them properly. Next, the Giles Curran thing was interesting right. He buys a Jaguar Pace. No, no, not that a very, very fast case. Yeah F Pace right, no, no, no, its still wrong and its a car that needs a lot of power. Yes were getting there. It is a car that needs a lot of power, its just not an f pace which comes with a choice of petrol and diesel engines, but as far as We Know no electric, no no do you think he means the eye Pace.

I think youre very, very you mean the eyepiece Jeremy hang on lets stay with this one. Shall we okay? He writes the piece saying its a disaster. You cant get anywhere. It then emerges hes been charging it by running a cable from a normal socket in his house, which experts say will take a minimum of two days. Okay hes got quite a big battery in ipace, so it will take quite a long time. Two days two days. I mean I do know that people do charge their car that way, but most people that buy a 65 000 pound electric car or even cheaper would actually just get a home wall box fitted and it would charge it in eight hours. So that seems an odd way of charging your electric car and probably not one. We would recommend, know you cant charge them. What those pictures you saw were people at Christmas queuing for an hour and a half to get to an electric pump and then spending over three electric charges. Another three courts are now to charge it and then, when they shoot off 120 miles later, bang its all gone. Oh hes, all getting a bit heated, I could say the electricity has fallen out of the car and it could couldnt get it back. It just fell out like it had a leak. Oh my goodness me, there is quite a lot to unpack yeah. Where do we start? Okay. Well, lets start with the pictures of the cues that, and they were there, they werent denying that they were there and we are increasingly seeing pictures of queuing as we saw with the Tesla at certain areas over Christmas yeah, because electric cars are becoming so popular.

You know one in six new cars sold last year was electric. Their sales were up 40 over 20 21 and when it comes to Tesla, the Tesla Model y was actually the third best selling car in the UK best selling car overall, not just best selling electric. We do need a better plan in place to alleviate those cues peak times, maybe things like surge pricing, so that makes people think more about when they actually need to charge. So do you know what he can have that one? I will just put a little technical point in there, though. Okay theres a couple of things. Yes, like Tesla drivers, because its usually so seamless arent, always aware that there are other places they can charge because you can charge a Tesla anywhere, yes, thats, true and also if youve got a Tesla. You will be quite aware that it generally will not take you more than 40 minutes 45 minutes to charge. That is true. They would be in and out a lot quicker than he seems to suggest in there yeah and Tesla people can back us up on that and in fact, if you were going to put the 120 miles in that he says, bang will be gone immediately. It would only take about 15 minutes yeah and actually, I would say as an addition to that. Teslas are generally very efficient cars its why they got one of our efficiency Awards. Theyve got the highest electronic efficiency award and thats, something that you should always think about and consider when youre buying any electric car its, not just how big your battery is its.

How well you use it, and on that note I think our fact check is done, and while we appreciate Mikes obvious passion for the subject so passionate, we would like to hear from you lot. What do you think to these interviews that seem to be just basically baiting people with electric cars? Do you think they have valid points? Do you think theres a grain of Truth in there or do you think its just all fear and uncertainty and making everyone worried? Do you think theres an agenda yeah, let us know in the comments and do and also let us know about our fact, checking weve done the research weve been very thorough. We like to think we know what were talking about, but we would also love to hear your comments about this video in the comments below thanks for watching bye Mike all right, Im gon na go and empty.