Those of us keeping track of electric vehicle (EV) mania, have been relieved and amused as a trend and a historic event coincided. The trend was the triumph of the free market.
Americans in increasing numbers came to realize everything they’d been told about EVs was an exaggeration or lie. Range figures were hopelessly optimistic. EVs cost far too much. They cost far too much to repair and insurance costs were outrageous. They took far too long to charge, there weren’t nearly enough charging stations and those that existed were often out of service. Home charging stations, if they could be installed at all, cost more than $10,000 dollars. If one’s EV spontaneously combusted, which quite a few did, it couldn’t be put out and would burn down your garage and home, which is why various EV makers like Chevy recommended not parking their vehicles in your garage.
If that wasn’t bad enough, in cold climates, EVs lose as much as half their range, and Ford recommended owners only use the steering wheel and seat heaters in their F-150 pickup truck EVs. Owners found that inadequate to keep them from freezing and for keeping frost off the windshield.
Americans realized they didn’t want, couldn’t afford and wouldn’t buy EVs. This was even beginning to cause manufacturer CEOs to “postpone” grand EV plans, CEO’s like Ford’s Jim Farley who was losing so many billions Ford stockholders were likely planning lynchings.
The historic event was the reelection of Donald Trump and with it, the collapse of climate change, the New Green Deal and EV mania and mandates. American EV makers either went bankrupt, or like the “Big 3,” all but totally shut down their EV plants and grandiose plans to make "X%" of their production EVs by "Y" year. They’ve done it quietly, though. EVs are dying, not with a blaze of the glory of an EV melting into the pavement, but with a whimper.
Some EV cheerleaders are, however, holding out hope with the invention of micronuclear power reactors.
Graphic: DOD, Public Domain
Some Army installations could be powered by nuclear microreactors under an executive order recently issued by President Donald Trump.
The order, published May 23, calls for deploying advanced nuclear reactor technologies for national security and directs Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll to establish a program using the technology for both installation and operational energy.
It orders the operation of a nuclear reactor at a domestic military base or installation by Sept. 30, 2028.
“Advanced nuclear reactors include nuclear energy systems like Generation III+ reactors, small modular reactors, microreactors, and stationary and mobile reactors that have the potential to deliver resilient, secure, and reliable power to critical defense facilities and other mission capability resources,” according to the order.
Wow! Finally, a cheap, effective means of recharging electric military vehicles! Keep in mind military EVs are essential dead under the Trump/Hegseth DOD, which is focused on efficient and deadly war fighting.
In order for EVs to work for the military, they have to have at least as great a range as civilian EVs, which means around 250 miles. Unfortunately, military EVs are far heavier and must traverse all kinds of hills and uneven terrain, which dramatically reduces range to the low double digits.
Graphic: Twitter Screenshot
They also must be rapidly refueled in the field. They can’t, as the graphic illustrates, run back to a defended base whenever they need a charge, and microreactors are too big and heavy to be moved into the field. What’s illustrated is only a reactor vessel, not the rest of the electric infrastructure necessary to use the power the reactor generates.
Even running diesel generators in the field would be a disaster. There would need to be essentially one generator for every EV, and as they sat idle, recharging for 45 minutes or so, they’d be sitting ducks. Vehicles waiting in line for hours to be recharged would beg an enemy to destroy them.
EVs use lithium-ion batteries which contain substances which must be kept separated. If joined through so much as a pinhole, they burst into flames and/or explode. Once an EV battery combusts, it creates its own oxygen, which renders it impossible to extinguish. Even civilian EVs, with fire departments nearby, generally melt into the pavement as fire fighters struggle to keep the surrounding area from catching fire. As little as a single rifle bullet could explosively destroy a military EV and its crew.
And worse is the sheer weight of EV batteries. Civilian EV batteries add no less than 1000 pounds and wear out tires at incredible rates. Batteries big enough to run armored vehicles would make them so heavy they’d be unable to cross most terrain.
So no, microreactors aren’t going to revive military EVs, an idea whose time has never come.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.