Has Our Lunatic President Made EVs a Practical Doomsday Prep?

An honest answer.

Photo by Venti Views on Unsplash

With the current U.S. president making threats like “a whole civilization will die tonight,” while dropping F-bombs from the marble throne of his Lincoln bathroom, and with the IEA announcing “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” you might be wondering if it’s finally time to buy an electric vehicle (among other things). You might be wondering if you can afford one. You might be wondering if there’s any hidden downsides.

Let’s jump right into it.

Yes, it makes a lot of sense to get an EV for a lot of different reasons, wars and oil crises notwithstanding. It makes even more sense to get one along with solar panels, as I wrote a couple of months ago. If I can be honest, EVs have struck me as a luxury asset for a long time. But that’s because I didn’t know much about them. My tune has changed over the last few days, as I started putting together the pieces of all the different analyses of the Iran war, its long-term repercussions, and the bigger picture in terms of the climate crisis. We own an EV now.

It felt like a straightforward decision. Will it turn out to be a mistake? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Like all other things, time will tell.

But I don’t regret any of my other preps.

First, even before the war with Iran, the climate crisis has been making life unpredictable everywhere. A climate disaster could strike your city at any time, and they’re getting worse. Energy scarcity and grid erosion alone drive up your risk of blackouts 100x by 2030. Just look at the last few years…

This year, experts are predicting an historic super El Niño to drop by the fall. In fact, they’re predicting “the strongest El Nino event in 140 years.” That means more than worse droughts, floods, and storms. It means new global temperature records. It means weather events that nobody alive has seen. It means, well, we don’t know how bad things could get. That’s the most disturbing part.

Nobody has seen it before.

My family came to our senses a few days ago. For years, we’ve struggled to stock and rotate gasoline for emergencies. It was a real pain. Even with fuel stabilizers, gasoline boasts a relatively short shelf life of 1-3 years. You have to cycle your supply. It smells. The fumes aren’t safe. We could never find a truly “spill-proof” container. And who wants to store large quantities of a flammable liquid?

Not me, thanks…

From a prepping standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to get solar panels and then get an electric vehicle. You enjoy a reliable form of transportation that might meet your needs better than a bicycle or a horse, and certainly better than a gasoline-powered car, especially during a disaster. No more gas storage. No more fretting about shortages and panic buying. Need to get somewhere?

Charge it up and go.

Let’s face it, someone trying to raise a family in the middle of a suburban sprawl faces systemic disadvantages and constraints that pretty much force us to own an automobile of some kind. I wish it didn’t. It would be nice if we could all live in more pedestrian environments, but many of us are stuck where we are. Not everyone can move somewhere else. It’s just reality.

The case for an EV has changed a lot over the last year.

Before:

Believe it or not, experts were predicting gasoline prices to drop over the next several years. Ironically, they cited widespread EV adoption as a key factor, driving down demand for gas. They also cited increased production from oil companies in the U.S., and worldwide, resulting in a supply glut. We could talk oil and geopolitics all day, but in the end: While oil companies surging production means terrible things for us, including more disasters to prepare for, you wouldn’t have had to worry about a general lack of availability for a while. Of course, that’s assuming you made it through the next 5-10 years with no disasters or emergencies.

Trump has upended all of these trajectories.

First, he axed tax credits for EVs. Second, he upended the global economy with tariff schemes. Now he’s doing more damage through this reckless war with Iran, which threatens longterm destruction to oil and natural gas production. It’s safe to say we have no idea what’s really going to happen with gasoline and diesel prices, except now they’re going verticle. While it might seem relatively calm in the U.S., panic buying “reminiscent of an apocalypse film” is breaking out in other parts of the world, and countries are starting to ration gasoline. Energy experts in Britain expect gasoline rationing and bare shelves “within weeks.”

Recently, Trump released roughly 40 percent of the country’s strategic reserves. That alone counts as the second-largest release in history, just after Biden’s in 2022, driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Worldwide, we’re seeing something widely regarded as the largest strategic release in history. According to this piece in The Conversation, it’s pretty much a drop in the bucket.

It’s going to blunt oil prices for a few months (or weeks).

If the war continues, if Iran has to keep the Straight of Hormuz closed, if oil and natural gas production facilities keep blowing up, we’re looking at a severe and arguably permanent disruption to the world’s energy supply. That spills over into all kinds of economic and logistic consequences, including food shortages. And let’s remember that Iran is fighting an asymmetric war, using the only tools it has to fend off a megalomanical lunatic threatening to destroy their entire civilization. Do you think they’re perhaps justified here? Perhaps, perhaps.

Consider the longterm picture here. In the most optimistic case, Trump chickens out and the world starts to recover. In the more pessimistic scenario, one that considers collapse economics and politics, we’re entering a new era where endless war and severe supply chain disruptions become the norm. Look at the last few years. We’ve seen more wars with deeper implications, not fewer. If that holds true, then an EV suddenly becomes a much more attractive option.

Climate doomers like me see the world devolving into war as nations like the U.S., Russia, and China compete for dwindling resources and influence. That’s been behind the moves in Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, Greenland, and now Iran. The powers are dividing up the world into fiefdoms, and things are getting messy.

In short, it won’t get better—only worse.

An EV might become the only way you can get to work, the only way you can pick up groceries, the only way you can go somewhere to get seeds or gardening tools, the only way you can travel to see family, the only way you can arrange play dates for your children. That’s the situation we foresee.

How expensive is an EV?

As of now, you can buy something like an Ioniq 5 for about the cost of a nice new car. Many dealerships are running special discounts now (probably because of tax season). The deals going on now rival the tax credits we would’ve gotten. That plus trade-ins make it doable. Regardless of what you buy, you don’t have to drop $50,000 on a new car. We’re talking more like mid $30Ks. You can buy used EVs for even less, but that brings risks. You could wind up with a degraded or damaged battery. Even if the used EV comes with the original warranties, it’s a considerable headache. So, exercise your own judgment there.

What’s the range?

EVs enjoy a decent range now, around 300 miles on a full charge. That’s about a tank of gas for a smaller car. We’ll take it.

If you get folding solar panels and a portable generator, you can charge your car on the road without having to pull into a charging station.

It’s doable.

How long do the batteries last?

An EV battery lasts 15 years, even 20 with good care. Many EVs come with a 10-year warranty for the battery. You can even buy extended warranties that cover every part of the vehicle for 10 years.

Do they require more maintenance?

EVs require less maintenance than a standard car, but they come with their own hassles. You have to rotate the tires a little more often. The increased weight also puts more strain on them. Your first set of tires will likely have foam, and they’ll probably last 15-20K miles. After that, though, you can replace them with EV-compatible tires that get more mileage, more in the neighborhood of 25-50K.

How do you charge them?

You can use a level 1, 2, or 3 charger. A level 1 charger plugs straight into your wall outlet. It charges super slow, but it charges. If you don’t drive a huge amount, you can probably get away with charging at home from your solar panels. You’ll just need to keep it plugged in all the time. Your battery management system will prevent any overcharging, so don’t worry too much about that.

If you need to charge it up fast, take it to a charging station. More gas stations are installing them. You can even install a level 2 charger in your garage, but installation costs start around $2,000. (So I’ve read.)

Is it a scam?

No, they work. They’re reliable. They give you some independence from the grid, but they’re not magic. They require maintenance and upkeep like everything else, and they can break. There’s a principle at work here. It’s about reducing your exposure to risk and uncertainty. An EV will do that. It will do that without requiring you to adopt a completely different lifestyle.

Maybe it’s not for you. Maybe you can’t afford one. It’s smart to get an EV, but it’s also smart not to overstretch your finances.

So, that’s my take. We’ve already gone EV. It brings peace of mind. From the most immediate, practical standpoint, we’re a little less worried about what stupid things our president does. We have a vehicle that puts us in a better position to take care of ourselves, but also our family and friends. We can run errands for them. We can travel to see them during an emergency.

We don’t have to sit up at night wondering what we’ll do if we see panic buying because of a war, a cyber attack, a hurricane, or any other reason. It doesn’t eliminate our risks, but it reduces them. It’s one less thing to worry about.

And one less thing to worry about is…

One less thing to worry about.