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Weather: Patchy fog in the morning. Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 70s. North winds 5 to 10 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly cloudy. Patchy fog after midnight. Lows in the lower 60s. Northeast winds around 5 mph in the evening, becoming light and variable.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Drug Court convenes before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse, Kim C. Hammond Justice Center 1769 E Moody Blvd, Bldg 1, Bunnell. Drug Court is open to the public. See the Drug Court handbook here and the participation agreement here.
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry: Flagler Beach United Methodist Church‘s food pantry is open today from 9:30 a.m. to noon at 1500 S. Daytona Ave, Flagler Beach. The church’s mission is to provide nourishment and support in a welcoming, respectful environment. To find us, please turn at the corner of 15 Street and S. Daytona Ave, pull into the grass parking area and enter the green door.
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Central Park, from noon to 2 p.m. in Central Park in Town Center, 975 Central Ave. Join Bill Wells, Bob Rupp and other members of the Palm Coast Model Yacht Club, watch them race or join the races with your own model yacht. No dues to join the club, which meets at the pond in Central Park every Thursday.
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:30 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are: Hop on for stories and songs with Miss Doris.
Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 7:30 p.m. most days, with matinees on Sundays, at 2 p.m., and on Nov. 15. Thornton Wilder’s timeless masterpiece chat quietly and powerfully explores life, love, and loss in small-town America. A deeply human story that resonates with every audience.
Notably: I’m always amazed, when I remember they’re there, that two of the most stately trees in the county are right off State Road 100 in one of the denser parts of town, when you take Briarwood Drive/Old Brick Road before Marvin’s Garden and suddenly find yourself driving along Moody Homestead Park. The park is named for the homestead of Isaac Moody Jr., Flagler County’s original developer and banker (Bunnell State Bank) and postmaster, its first prominent politician–before Flagler was its own county: he served on the St. Johns County Commission–and promoter. He was principally responsible for Flagler County’s creation in 1917, so much so that there was a little movement among his friends and colleagues to call the place Moody County. He deferred to his good friend Henry Flagler. He had a house in what is today Moody Park, where the trees remain. There they are, between two and four centuries old (two different plaques at the site can’t agree) to the left as you drive. A notice identifies them as Southern Live Oaks, like the enormous one at Washington Oaks Garden State Park–as tall, as broad, as embracing with moss and memory (I think trees have more enduring memories than elephants). The bigger one at Moody is called “Moody Oak.” The two trees have been pruned and pruned and pruned “to maintain a strong structure and limit disease,” though I remember years ago visiting them and marveling at the older tree’s enormous branch sloping down to the ground and as if running along it for an impossible distance. I found a picture I took in December 2011:
The branch is gone now. Pruned. But why? Many other branches have been cut, leaving the tree out of balance. The more recent pictures, above and below, were taken on Oct. 28 as I stopped there to say hello, on my way back from a meeting at the county about beach erosion (a different kind of pruning that does not strengthen but weakens beaches). A strange character was parked there–strange in the lugubriously lonely sense–so I didn’t linger, though I’d have liked to. The rest of the neighborhood is an odd, bedraggled assortment of shabby churches and shabbier businesses, especially since the departure years ago of Nature Scapes and its equally wondrous successor, JJ Graham’s Salvo Art gallery. What priceless tree rings, those years. Pruned.
—P.T.
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
November 2025
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Palm Coast Beautification and Environmental Advisory Committee
Flagler Beach City Commission Meeting
Copy of Flagler Beach City Commission Meeting
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
For the full calendar, go here.
Trees filtering light onto dappled grass. Trees like tall, languid ladies with feather fans coquetting airily with the ugly roof of the monastery. Trees like butlers, bending courteously over placid walks and paths. Trees, trees over the hills on either side and scattering out in clumps and lines and woods all through eastern Maryland, delicate lace on the hems of many yellow fields, dark opaque backgrounds for flowered bushes or wild climbing gardens.
–From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Benediction” in Flappers and Philosophers (1920).
Ed P says
Unspoken economic effects of the government shutdown.
Government contractors are going to start layoffs. Projects are halted.
Airlines must throttle back by 10% in 40 markets. Travel disruptions imminent.
Delays begin backlogging for product vetting and grant approvals.
Local businesses near governmental agencies are seeing reductions.
Supply chain disruptions at customs and borders. Holidays are upon us.
Delayed economic data.
Permits, certifications, and licenses delayed for government projects.
Stalled loans and consumer mortgages.
No new FEMA flood insurances issued for home buyers.
FDA stalled reviews of break through drugs or equipment.
Possible safety risks from government agencies when non paid employees don’t show up for work.
Soon, it won’t be just leveraging the most vulnerable but will negatively impact all of us.
Where is the concern and outrage demanding a solution to this man made politically motivated stunt that should have never occurred?
Is this the Democratic strategy? Holding the American people as leverage every budget resolution, repeatedly shutting down the government if they don’t get their way? We are only 10 months into this administration. Is this their plan? If so, everyone should prepare themselves for the economic fall out coming our way.
I can’t fathom a good outcome if the above comes to fruition.
Laurel says
Amazing! “Democratic strategy.” How do ya get there?
The Republicans hold the House, the Senate, the Presidency, the Judicial system and the Supreme Court, yet, they are totally helpless, helpless, helpless against the Minority party! So they go home. If that is the case, maybe they should give up! Thier weakness exposed.
Did y’all catch the Great Gatsby party at Mar A Lago? Half naked ladies dancing with one slipping around in a giant champagne glass. Guests all dolled up as Daisey and Jay, showing off excesses of the ultra rich, the Trump Guilded Age, while middle class Americans don’t get a paycheck. They got their tax breaks, so why not celebrate? Did you get invited?
I wonder who will fund the galas at the new Trump Ball Room. We the people? In the “People’s House?”
How’s your golf swing?
This is what happens when psychopathy runs the government.
Ed P says
Laurel,
Are you being sarcastic even in your first paragraph?
You realize that it was the Democrats who refused and continue
to refuse the passing of a clean CR to keep the country open?
Are you ignoring the fact that the Republican senate doesn’t have the 60 votes to pass a CR? They hold a majority but not 60 seats.
And finally, don’t be gullible enough to believe this current round of obstructionism won’t be repeated.
Ps. Your jaded analysis of our court system is also “malarkey”
Laurel says
No, my first paragraph is dead serious. How do you get there? The Trump admin is fighting the release of funds for SNAP in court. The withholding of food is being done intentionally by the Trump administration. Don’t they tell you that on Fox Entertainment?
Call me “jaded,” accuse me of “nonsense” and “malatky.” Enjoy. But I clearly see what is going on, and use logic to understand it. I don’t make excuses, or twist information to fit a narrative.
Laurel says
To remind you, Mitch McConnell worked hard to make a majority conservative Supreme Court, and Trump placed many Republican judges in positions across the country, not for justice, but to have complete power.
Thank goodness he doesn’t have full backing to do that.
BillC says
As usual Ed P has it backwards. All the blame is on the unconscionable Tax breaks for the millionaires and billionaires. Ballroom dancing at the White House anyone?
Skibum says
It would be nice for democrats to be able to continue with the previous mantra of former first lady Michelle Obama, who liked to say: “When they go low, we go high”. Unfortunately, republi-cons have lowered themselves further and further into the dirt under the convicted felon in the WH’s demands, threats, unconstitutional actions, illegal and unethical attempts to thwart democracy at every turn, and ongoing dirty political tricks to try to ensure republi-cons never again have to face the threat of losing future elections regardless of what voters want.
So many American voters have already been disenfranchised by partisan political gerrymandering of minority controlled congressional districts in southern states. The felon in the WH has already talked about the need to use federal law enforcement and military resources to confiscate ballot boxes after federal elections so they can be taken to secret locations where only republi-con election “verifiers” recount votes of only “legitimate voters” before determining the winner of elections.
One would think things like this could only happen in far away 3rd world banana republics, NOT the United States of America! But here we are, with one man at the top of our government who was actually gifted a gold crown by a foreign government who knows this president’s ultimate goal is to be an authoritarian, wanna-be dictator who never has to relinquish power while he is alive.
After the convicted felon, sex abuser, pedophile protector occupying the WH shared the meme of him wearing a crown in a fighter jet crapping all over the heads and bodies of Americans on the ground beneath him, this cartoon is, in my estimation, right on and very appropriate after the American voters in several states sent a STRONG message of rebuke to the pedophile protector and his maga republi-con sycophants in congress.
Voters always have the last say, IF we the American people understand our constitutional responsibility to participate in democracy by going to the polls and voting in every local, state and federal election. On Tuesday, voters everywhere understood their assignment and did just that, having learned a very valuable lesson. So now the felon president, the lying maga GOP speaker and the republi-con candidates who lost BIGLY in Tuesday’s elections are covered in the dung of their own making while democrat voters’ new mantra for the moment is and must continue to be:
“When you go low, democrats will not sit silently by and allow you to destroy our country and our democracy, We will get down and dirty and fight like hell to save our country from your evil and you all will end up with your own shit on your faces!”
So let it be said… so let it be done!
Sherry says
A huge “Thank You” Skibum!
Isn’t it ridiculously absurd that Maga has already “gerrymandered” Texas as trump ordered, but now the GOP is suing California for voting to do the same thing!
This from Politico:
Texas GOP passes the House gerrymander Trump asked for
The new map could help Republicans flip as many as five seats, boosting the GOP’s chances of holding House control.
By Liz Crampton and Zach Montellaro
08/23/2025 08:16 AM EDT
Updated: 08/23/2025 10:48 AM EDT
Texas Republicans approved a new, aggressively gerrymandered congressional map early Saturday morning, moving forward with a power grab pushed by President Donald Trump.
Laurel says
Huh. Sounds like “rigging,” doesn’t it?
Kennan says
I second that thank you Skibum!!!
Excellent analysis. Democrats, although they have plenty of their own problems and some soul-searching to do on their own, they at least are not trying to do things to blow the door open for full blown and fascism. All this bullshit I hear from the right about Democrats holding up progress and causing the shutdown is nothing more than a smoke screen to hide their own embarrassment by the criminals they voted for
Skibum says
I don’t celebrate the fact that CA had to put that on last Tuesday’s ballot, ASKING voters what should the state do? But at least it was democracy in action, with the voters deciding instead of just corrupt politicians from TX sitting in a room like puppets making a draconian change at the felon prez’ request that disenfranchised thousands of minority voters for no damn reason except to rig future elections. It is time to get real and fight fire with a BIGGER fire!
Ed P says
So today, 2 wrongs make a right?
Gerrymandering has been around a long long time.
The old question, How do you know when any politician is lying?
Ray W. says
NBC NEWS reports that a D.C. jury just returned a not guilty verdict in the federal prosecution of a man who threw a sandwich at the chest of an ICE officer.
The reporter focused on the officer’s testimony that the sandwich “exploded” against his chest and that he could smell mustard and onions. The defense focused on a picture taken at the time of the incident with the sandwich resting on the ground still fully encased in its wrapper.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I have no idea what was discussed during jury deliberations, but when a case permitted, I tried to build my defense on flaws in the state’s evidence, the more obvious the better.
Every jury in Florida is told that it can accept or reject any part of or all of a witness’ testimony.
When a crucial government witness testified under oath that a sandwich that in reality was in its wrapper on the ground after the event had “exploded” against his chest, is that sufficient reason for the jurors to reject all of that witness’ testimony?
Skibum says
To answer your question if I may, yes, absolutely! In addition to that, jurors always retain and should fall back on their common sense. Judge Judy likes to say “If it doesn’t make sense, it didn’t happen.” I believe that officer embellished his testimony on purpose, knowing the incident was not nearly as serious as it was made out to be.
He would have been asked by Judge Judy 1) Were you injured? 2) Did you need medical treatment? 3) Do you have any medical bills? Obviously the answer to all three questions would have been NO.
I have to wonder if any of the jurors were silently infuriated about the thousands of presidential pardons of those who were convicted by other juries of very serious felony crimes, including assaulting law enforcement officers with various weapons on Jan. 6. Then having to hear about the president, VP, and current AG subsequently downplay the real violence that we all watched that day, and make excuses for those who committed violent assaults on officers that day… and now pretend that a sub sandwich being tossed at the shirt of a federal officer deserved a felony conviction while forgiving and excusing violent maga rioters who caused real damage and real injuries at the U.S. Capitol.
Sometimes, as this case exemplifies, jurors have more brain cells than those with law degrees.
Ed P says
Spitting would be a problem but oil and vinegar or mayo is ok? (Sarcasm)
Sure the sandwich was wrapped and the charges were a bit absurd.
However, no one has the right to throw a sandwich or anything at anyone.
The next protester could take this ruling to heart and might decide a cake or pie will be ok as well. Everyone likes desert time from time.
Ray, you are correct, a sickness has besieged the country.
Ray W. says
A Raw Story reporter published an article earlier today about a Chicago federal judge, after taking testimony during a hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction against Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, finding that “the testimony of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be ‘not credible.'”
With specificity, the trial judge “noted” that Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino “admitted that he lied” during a deposition about the circumstances of his deployment of tear gas after being ordered not to do so, except under certain circumstances.
Per the federal judge:
“Agents pushed, shoved, tackled protesters, pointed guns at them, threw tear gas and deployed smoke cannisters. Everyone that agents detained were released by the FBI, and none of them are currently charged with assault. … Those are the factual findings that I’m making to support this preliminary injunction.”
Make of this what you will.
From evidence submitted into the record, the judge found that the federal agents’ use of force in Chicago “shocks the conscience”, adding: “I see little reason for the use of force that the federal agents are currently using.”
From here on out, no federal agent may use force against protesters or reporters covering protests unless there exists circumstances that are “objectively” necessary to stop an immediate threat of a person causing “serious bodily injury or death to another person.”
The federal judge then issued the temporary injunction and ordered federal officers to give “two separate warnings” before deploying force, to wear identification in two places, and to wear body cameras.
She did not stay her order pending appeal.
She concluded her order with a John Adams quote: “Liberty once lost is lost forever.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
An “objective” standard relies on the “reasonable person” review of the evidence, not the individual officer’s perspective.
A number of federal judges have recently held that certain government witnesses may not be relied on to testify truthfully under oath. Recently, a federal judge ruled that it could not rely on evidence placed in the record after federal prosecutors admitted that evidence critical to the issue before the court provided to them by government sources had not been true at the time the lawyers submitted the evidence into the record.
There is a sickness upon the land.
It should be obvious by now to all FlaglerLive readers that no one can take at face value anything said by the professional lying class that sits atop one of our two political parties. Violence and retribution is the message! Lying for political gain has become a virtue. Lie laundering for political gain has become a virtue.
Sherry says
@ Ray W. Could you please educate us all on the definition of perjury and penalties involved. Why do you suppose charges have not been made. . . or have they?
Skibum says
Sherry, I don’t want to speak for Ray, but I will say this… perjury happens every single day in courtrooms across America. I think it is common to expect criminals facing potential conviction and either a jail or prison sentence to lie in order to minimize or excuse their behavior, or try to deflect and point to another person to avoid consequences altogether. If every time someone who perjured themself with false testimony faced additional charges for doing so, our courts would be so clogged up they would not be able to function.
Having said that, there are real penalties for law enforcement officers who are found to have perjured themself by lying under oath. There is such thing as what’s called a “Brady List” containing names of officers who’s testimony can not be trusted to be the truth. Those law enforcement officers have documented, proven instances of being untruthful, and both prosecutors and judges have access to that information.
Ray W. says
Hello Sherry.
Perjury is a broad subject.
Florida’s Chapter 837, last redefined in 1990, defines the many different types of false statements deemed criminal in one sense or another.
Section 837.012 defines perjury when not in an official proceeding.
Section 837.012 defines perjury when in an official proceeding.
Section 837.021 defines perjury by contradictory statements.
Section 837.05 defines false statements to law enforcement authorities.
Section 837.055 defines false information to law enforcement during (certain) investigations.
Section 837.06 defines false official statements.
Section 837.07 defines when recantation of a false statement can be used a defense.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
As a young child, perhaps as young as six or seven, I spent my allowance one week on a balsa wood toy airplane, as I recall. My two older brothers bought balloons. One evening soon thereafter, they filled from an outdoor water spigot some balloons to throw at cars on A1A. I wanted to join them, but they said as I had not bought any balloons, I couldn’t join them. I, with my two younger brothers, watched from a distance.
Soon, a policeman in his cruiser pulled up, followed a few moments later by a woman in her own car. The passenger side front door of her car had a big rusty dent in it.
The woman told the officer that my brothers had dented her car door with a balloon; she said she wanted our parents to pay for the damage to the door.
The officer, having already shined his flashlight on the damaged door, told her that she had the right to file a complaint, but if she did so he was going to charge her with false report of a crime. He said her rusty door couldn’t have rusted that much in mere minutes and that a water balloon wouldn’t have dented the metal door the way it was dented.
Every prosecutor soon learns what I already knew when I began prosecution: Every day someone will try to use a prosecutor to hurt other people. If it takes a lie for them to achieve the hurt, they will lie.
This is not cynicism; it is skepticism learned from life’s experiences. This is why Florida’s legislature so long ago made it a crime for someone to file a false criminal complaint against another person.
The police officer told my parents. The bag of balloons disappeared. I don’t remember my older brothers buying balloons again.
Sherry says
Thank you Ray! IMO. . . It certainly seems that judges should have some kind of tool in their box to at least smack the hands of government workers who obviously lie in court. Could they at least be held in contempt? Something? Anything?
What stops them from lying again and again?
Ray W. says
Judges do have tools at their disposal.
But one cannot forget that a judge must, first, address the issues raised in the matter before the court. The court had to decide whether to extend an original injunction. The court had to weigh the evidence and decide which evidence to accept and which to reject, and to provide reasons to support those decisions. This the court did.
What happens in the future is as yet unknown.
I have seen attorney after attorney go into court and forget what it is that they seek. I was taught by my father that when I realized I was winning, I needed to pile my file neatly on the table so that I could get out as fast as I could once I won. My father intoned more than once: Never give a judge time to change his mind. Get out! And I certainly couldn’t serve two clients at once. My job was to win the case, not try to punish the witnesses who had lied to the court.
But you might want to know that law enforcement cynical slang for those officers who lie under oath is “testilying.” I recall a police department volunteer telling me at a social function that the agency had a “motors” room. Above the doorway was a sign seen only when someone left the room. “If in doubt, lie.” I don’t know if what I was told was true. I don’t know whether, if true, the sign was up for only one day. All I know is that I never tried to get into that room, so I will never know whether what I was told was true.
Skibum says
Ray, I cannot imagine any legitimate law enforcement agency allowing anyone to place such a sign above a doorway inside a police department, but if true I suspect that agency had many more problems than just that issue.
I remember very early on in my law enforcement career in L.A. There would always be a mirror in locker rooms of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department facilities, and I saw a sign prominently placed directly above the mirror in one locker room with this message:
“Is your attitude on straight?”
I always loved that sign.
Sherry says
Thank you Ray W. and Skibum! Your experiences and insight are quite interesting.
A “quick” story from my own background.. . I’ve served on a couple of ethic committees during my career. My “short” response to 95% of the questions brought to me was: “If you can’t shout it from the rooftops, you shouldn’t be doing it”.
I actually said that to one of my clients at Wells Fargo Nikko who devised a scheme to hire the people I found during my “head hunting” days without paying me a full FEE. He replied that his definition of ethics was “whatever I can legally get way with. You don’t have the money to sue me”. I walked out of his office saying I would never do business with him again. He was flabbergasted. . . called my boss to get me fired. That didn’t work. Continued to call me for years. . . with flattery like “you find the best people”. I never presented a candidate to Wells Fargo Nikko again.
Perhaps that is why I find trump’s lying and complete lack of principles so egregious. . . making him absolutely “unfit” for office!
Ray W. says
Here is News Nation’s take on the ruling by the Chicago judge on the issue of a temporary restraining order.
According to the reporter, after the presentation of hours of testimony, including the presentation into the record of video-recorded evidence and evidence prepared by officials with the Department of Homeland Security, the federal prosecutor then argued to the judge that “federal immigration officers and agents have ‘honored and protected’ peaceful protesters” and that “[t]here’s no evidence to suggest the plaintiffs or anyone else has been targeted for their viewpoints.”
The federal attorney also argued that its evidence showed protesters becoming angry and aggressive towards federal agents, including testimony that Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino had been struck in the face by a rock before he threw a tear gas canister. But footage of the event undermined that argument.
During his deposition, Commander Bovino claimed that he never tackled the man whom he had claimed had thrown the rock and that he had “implored” the man to comply with an order to leave the area. That claim was not supported by the evidence in the record.
Commander Bovino also stated during the deposition that he saw “no reportable use of force” in the video of the encounter, and that the man had used force against him. That claim, too, was not supported by the evidence in the record.
Finally, in the reporter’s account, Commander Bovino said that “all uses of force he has witnessed by federal officers and agents have ‘been more than exemplary’ and he claimed protesters have become more aggressive.”
Judge Ellis ruled that, in the reporter’s words, “the federal government’s characterization of the tactics used by federal officers and agents over the past two months does not match up with the evidence provided.”
She held:
“I find the government’s evidence to be simply not credible. … The government would have people believe instead that the Chicagoland area is in a vice hold of violence, ransacked by rioters and attacked by agitators. That simply is untrue, and the government’s own evidence in this case belies that assertion.”
Among other findings, the trial judge held that federal agents and officers had been “indiscriminately” using tear gas on protesters.
Judge Ellis had already issued one temporary restraining order pertaining to use of force by federal agents on October 9, 2025. She found that federal agents had repeatedly violated the terms of that order and issued a second and more restrictive restraining order.
As for U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, with specificity, Judge Ellis ruled that “Defendant Bovino admitted that he lied. He admitted that he lied that a rock hit him before he deployed tear gas in Little Village.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
In case after case, client after client told me that witnesses had lied against them. They insisted that in trial the witness would admit to the lie and the truth would come out. I told them that perhaps I could prepare for the lie and catch them flatfooted in front of the jury, but I also told them that there was very little chance, once the witness had been caught in the lie, that I could then predict which possible new lie, among many possible new lies, they would make up on the spot to cover the old lie.
This conundrum seems to have happened with federal witnesses called to the stand by the government. It seems from the articles that government witnesses were caught in lies and they just made up new lies to cover the old lies. The trial judge ruled that she had used the government’s own evidence submitted into the record to undermine the testimony of its witnesses.
This is a damning ruling against the government.
Ray W. says
A reporter, Channing Lee, with The Hill, posed an interesting question:
America, she argues, long ago chose to characterize EVs as an environmental issue. China chose to characterize EVs as a global industrial strategy. What would have happened if America had chosen to characterize EVs as a global industrial strategy, instead of as an environmental issue?
The reporter argues that in 2009, when Tesla announced its Model S, America led the world in EV production as an industrial strategy. But something happened. America turned the domestic EV marketplace into a politically divisive environmental issue. China did not.
By 2015, China had surpassed America in total EV production as an industrial strategy. American car companies were focusing on EVs as high-end vehicles. China was building mass-market vehicles.
Now, in China, EVs are thought of as computers on wheels, connected to data, chips and infrastructure, she writes. Americans still debate environmental impact. Chinese carmakers have become centers of innovation. American carmakers have not.
So here is the conundrum. According to the reporter, EVs are not a climate accessory, as America sees them; they are “the next platform for global technological power”, as the Chinese see them.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
This is right up my alley. I have long argued that we, as an economy, held the entire EV marketplace 20 years ago in the palm of our hands.
China, in the early 80’s, announced an industrial strategy to compete with the world’s legacy carmakers in internal combustion energy technology. But after nearly 30 years of trying, the Chinese government admitted failure and switched to supporting electric vehicles.
BYD, now the world’s biggest EV carmaker, produced its first EV in 2008.
Today’s most economically manufactured battery chemistry, lithium-ferrous-phosphate (LFP), was pioneered in an American university lab (University of Texas, at Austin). A company was formed to exploit the economic potential of the patented battery chemistry, but American carmakers looked the other way.
Wanxiang Group, an auto parts giant, bought in 2013 the patents in order for it to further develop the chemistry out of the ashes of the bankrupt American manufacturing company. Now, American legacy carmakers pay Chinese battery makers to use the once-American battery technology.
Apparently, the original chemistry patents have expired, meaning anyone can develop the LFP chemistry, but American carmakers are just too far behind the Chinese in manufacturing technique right now.
Is it possible that we have decided to base our economic future on political slop? Lies and deceptions?
For the first time, this past September, consumers around the world chose to buy 2.1 million “new energy vehicles”, as the Chinese government defines EVs. The average price of an American-bought EV last year was $55,000, give or take. The average price of a European-bought EV last year was $44,000, give or take. The average price of a Chinese-bought EV last year was $24,000, give or take. Even if the overall average worldwide price of an EV was $35,000 last month, give or take, 2.1 million of them means $73.5 billion in sales. That’s just for one month’s sales. We held in our hands the lead in an emerging technology sector and threw it all away.
I am going to type this over and over again.
About a year ago, Ford’s CEO told a British-based podcaster that internal combustion engines had reached such a level of development that only tiny incremental gains in efficiency could reasonably be expected in the future. According to him, it was an industrial marvel to watch the assembly of a gas-powered engine.
But EVs, he stated, were in their Model T stage of development. Even with all the decades of automobile experience held by the Big 3 American carmakers, they were 10 years behind the Chinese EV manufacturers.
In my view, EV batteries will continually become lighter, smaller, faster charging and discharging, longer-lasting, and ever more energy dense. Electric motors will become smaller, lighter and more energy efficient. Internal combustion engines will not keep pace.
The math is straightforward.
A gallon of gasoline has an energy density of 13.7 kWh and weighs 6.2 pounds, give or take. But the most efficient commercial internal combustion engine converts only 42% of the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, with the rest wasted as heat pumped out the tailpipe or radiated out from the cooling system. So that energy density is not 13.7 kWh; it is, at best, 5.75 kWh.
With a 15 gallon tank, a normal subcompact gas tank holds 86.6 kWh of usable energy, at a weight of over 90 pounds, give or take.
Many of the larger EV batteries already contain that much energy storage capacity, regardless of weight or volume. Batteries of that energy capacity weigh about 1,200 pounds. But a subcompact internal combustion engine, transaxle, cooling system, gas tank, and exhaust system can weigh more than 700 pounds with fluids. Each advance in battery technology and chemistry that increases energy density and mass will bring EV batteries closer and closer in weight to an entire engine package. Battery charging times are plummeting. Battery manufacturing costs as low as $30 per kWh have already dropped below the cost of making an entire engine package.
But today’s EV batteries are nowhere near the theoretical maximum for their battery chemistries. I looked up a site that listed over 1600 different battery chemistries in use today. Sodium-ion batteries are at energy densities some one-third to one quarter of their theoretical maximums. The theoretical maximum energy density of a graphene aluminum-ion battery is 1060 Wh/kg, some seven times that of today’s sodium-ion batteries.
This is what Ford’s CEO is talking about when he says EVs are at their Model T stage of development. Today’s EV batteries are crude forerunners to what tomorrow’s “next generation” batteries will be. Whoever leads that never-ending race will hold the key to manufacturing wealth, but it will not likely be American legacy car company, because we as a people stupidly made EVs a political issue, instead of an economic issue.