The Koch Brothers to Attack Electric Cars
According to Forbes magazine, the brothers Charles and David Koch Forbes have with an estimated net worth of $41.1 billion apiece. While their business enterprise, Koch Industries, is the second largest privately owned corporation in the United States with annual revenues of $115 billion, they are perhaps best known for lavish contributions to conservative politicians and causes. This election cycle the billionaire brothers and their Koch-backed network of political contributors are expected spend $750 million to fund conservative PAC’s and super PAC’s supporting Republican candidates.
I read a lot about the Koch brothers and I have always regarded them among the greatest enemies of our democratic system. I have assumed that their political meddling was an expensive hobby, a passionate pastime like golf. However, recently I read a Huffington Post article,"The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles" came away with a different impression.
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So why are Koch brothers and Koch Industries involved in effort to kill off electrical vehicles? Fred C. Koch, the father of Charles and David, built the foundation of the Koch business empire in the oil industry. Fossil fuels still make up a major chunk of Koch industries and the Koch brothers are not about to let the drive to produce clean energy eat away at their corporate profits. Their attack on electric vehicles is not their first venture in their campaign protect their business from competition from clean energy alternatives.
Rest of article here: The Koch Brothers to Attack Electric Cars
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The plan is for all of the Tesla super charging stations to run off of solar cells. In addition to turning out lithium cell batteries for cars, the Tesla giga-factory is also turning out storage batteries for solar powered homes call power walls.
The draw back of residential solar cells is that they often produce excess electricity when the sun is shining and certainly not in the evenings when most people most use electricity in their homes. The only alternative has been to feed the excess electricity into the commercial power grid - and have the meter turn backwards - and then use the commercial grid in the evenings.
In some states that works fairly well because the electrical companies have to pay the home owner for the electricity produced. But as price of solar decreases and more and more home owners install panel, the electrical power companies see the writing on the wall and they aren't liking what they're reading. So many power companies have persuaded the state public service commissions to install regulations which allow them to buy excess solar generated electricity at "wholesale" rates, which are well below what they charge.
That's where the power wall batteries come. When installed in a home they store the excess power generated by solar panels and even wind turbines for use whenever. When solar panels and the storage batteries get efficient enough, there may be no need to be on the electrical grid except for emergency situations.
I'm staying away doing any long term investing in electrical power companies. As more homes and factories go to alternate power sources - the Tesla giga-factory in Nevada will be solar powered - there will be less and less need for their product. As that happens the per unit cost to generate power commercially will rise forcing yet other users to generate their own electrical power which again increase the unit cost and....well you get the idea.
So no, many years in the future there will be no further need for oil and gas products to generate electricity to power cars, or anything else for that matter. Electrical cars are also the way of the future, because they are more efficient and less costly to run than gas powered vehicles and they have so few moving parts they are almost maintenance free.
However, look for car dealerships to fight electrical vehicles to their dying breath, and I use the word "dying" advisably. Not only does Tesla sell directly to the consumer, eliminating the independent dealership, but fact that electrical vehicles require so little maintenance scares them as well.
Car dealerships make a large percentage of their their profits on vehicle maintenance and many would go out of business without that revenue stream. Electric cars have no oil and fluids to change so there is virtually no routine maintenance. There are far fewer moving parts to break and go wrong. Most Tesla fixes and upgrades that make them even more efficient come over the internet.
So don't expect Chevy dealerships to be pushing the sales of the Chevy Bolt when it comes out. I want be buying any car dealership either. 
