California LAW forcing all new tractor-trailer rigs used in the state to be electric took effect 1 Jan

If politicians wanted to intentionally raise the cost of everything to consumers, what would they do?

The classic answer is, raise taxes.  But a second method is to pass laws and make rules that increase costs to everyone, including laws that reduce efficiency or productivity.

In totally-Democrat-ruled California one of the leftists' most ghastly examples went into effect 4 days ago.

The Global Wormies claim CO2 is warming the Earth by an unprecedented and dangerous amount.  So since the Dems have ruled Cali with an iron-clad majority for decades, they passed a law ordering that after 1/1 all new semi's must be electric.  They're pretending that ORDER will have a measurable benefit on the climate.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article on how these new goofy rules will work:

First, in an ordinary battery-powered car almost half the total weight is the battery.  So since an electric semi needs a huge battery, that make's em a lot heavier.  So to stay within highway weight limiits they can't haul as much payload.  And they'll have to re-charge two or three times a day, with the driver on the clock.  

Guess who ends up paying those higher costs.  Consumers.

If you need a tow in your car, you pay a few bucks a mile.  But if an electric semi runs out of juice it costs $60 bucks a mile.

One driver says that with his diesel-powered semi he could do six loads each day, buit with the battery-operated semi he can only do two per day, and has to work overtime to achieve that goal. Even though he gets paid for the overtime, he makes $400 less per month because his commissions are lower.

He describes a day when he started at 5:30 am, and drove 9 miles to a charging station where he spent an entire hour to charge the battery from “54% to 90%,” or enough to drive 200 miles. With his diesel truck he could go 1,000 miles after a fifteen-minute fill up.

This first charge covered his first trip of the day.   His second haul of the day began around noon; he had to drive 33 miles out of his way to get another charge, which took another 95 minutes.

Fitting these trucks at the charging stations is also a challenge.  Since many charging stations are in tight locations like shopping-center parking lots, often the driver has to unhook his trailer and park it somewhere else while he charges the tractor.

After a 13-hour day the driver had only delivered two loads and driven 248 miles.

His company calculated that the lower productivity had cost the company an extra $310 that day.  To compensate it added a surcharge to all the deliveries, which gets passed on to the consumer.

Image what this will do to freight costs when all goods are forced to be delivered by electric semi's. Think of the supply chain disruptions and costs if drivers can only do one-third the number of loads in a day, with loads that are far smaller.

And the cost of electric semis ($300k–$500k) dwarfs the cost of diesel-powered ones ($70k–$150k).  Clearly small companies won't be able to afford to operate under California's new law.

Of course none of this bothers Democrat legislators a bit--including higher costs to you.

It's funny: Democrats keep bleating about how much they care about the blue-collar little guy, like truck drivers. 

Source.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/californias_electric_semi_mandate_takes_effect_leaving_an_expensive_mess_for_the_truckers_and_taxpayers.html