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SLO climate change activist Heidi Harmon’s electric car calamity

January 24, 2022

Heidi Harmon

By KAREN VELIE

Former San Luis Obispo mayor and climate change activist Heidi Harmon attempted to “do the right thing,” and travel to a rally in San Francisco in an electric car. After multiple attempts to find a working charging station in San Jose, Harmon realized charging the car would take up to seven hours and there was no way she could make the rally.

Harmon posted multiple videos about her difficulties in traveling in an all-electric vehicle. She discusses calling the police or asking someone to send a helicopter to rescue her.

Many of the posts have now been deleted, though a collage of portions of Harmon’s videos remains:

Harmon spearheaded an effort last summer to enact a SLO city energy policy requiring all-electric new buildings. At that time, Mayor Harmon sat on the Central Coast Community Energy Board of Directors, the electric energy company she was promoting.

Harmon stepped down from her mayoral seat in August to battle climate change, Harmon said. Harmon is now working as a senior public affairs director for the Romero Institute’s Let’s Green CA initiative, a nonprofit affiliated with Central Coast Community Energy.

On Jan. 13, Harmon was headed to San Francisco to protest against PG&E’s solar penalty fees, but was unable to attend because of issues with vehicle charging infrastructure and the time it takes to charge an electric vehicle.

Harmon posted multiple videos during her attempt to charge the electric car she was driving on the Lets Green CA Instagram page, which she later shared to her own Instagram page. Since then, some of the videos have been deleted, and Harmon disabled her personal Instagram page.


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Electric cars are not green. According to the laws of physics, one can get only half the energy out out of a battery that is put into it. Plus, electric cars get their energy from fossel fuel generators


85

Pretty sure none of that is true.


-83

They forgot to ask you before they started making them.


-52

You can debate if EVs are really green, but you are wrong on both counts you mentioned.


The “laws of physics” say nothing about battery efficiency being limited to 50%. In fact, most lithium-ion batteries have an efficiency rate of 99% if charged slowly, lead acid batteries are around 90% and nickel-based batteries are closer to 80%. Even if charged at a 1C charge rate, lithium-ion batteries still have an efficiency of close to 90%.


And as to the electricity source for EVs, that’s entirely a factor of where they are being charged. If the owner has solar and charges at home, none of the energy is coming from “fossil (not fossel) fuel generators”. Also, Tesla has pledged to power all Supercharger stations with renewable energy,


-16

Where does the electricity come from at night when most EV owners charge their vehicles? (Hint: the sun isn’t shining and wind speeds are lower).


23

Hint: It can come from a home energy storage system like Tesla’s Power Wall which was designed specifically for that purpose. Running on 100% renewable energy isn’t that hard if you know what you are doing. Even if you aren’t charging an EV at night, an energy storage system is a smart investment especially considering how unreliable PG&E’s power grid has become. Just search on this site to see how many local outages PG&E had last year.


7

Oh it comes from one of the many energy storage facilities that store all of the excess

green energy produced during the day …. wait, are those being built and brought online? How many are there working today? How many are needed? Where’s the money coming from? Who’s paying? Who’s building? Is producing all the required batteries an environmentally friendly process? Maybe don’t use batteries?

Lots of questions. Any answers?


2

Transmission and distribution loss equals 9.2% here in the “golden state”. If the ambient temperature drops to 32 degrees you’ll destroy a lithium battery if you attempt to charge. Wouldn’t that be a hoot in a Midwest winter. Not to mention the 17-20% energy loss in cold conditions. A lead acid battery at 12 volts is 50% discharged, and lower than that results in damage to the battery. The technology isn’t there yet in the matter of storage. The answer is lithium metal, but we’re not there yet. Generating electricity is simple, but storing it is quite another matter.


5

“Laws of physics?” I only got a D in my college physics class but I know that lithium batteries are over 90% efficient in converting energy in to energy out. But forget about debating theory. Ask any EV owner to look at their charging history and compare that with their vehicle electricity use. Kwh in is pretty close to Kwh out. If anything is inefficient, its a gasoline powered car… the best of them only convert 35% of the energy in the fuel to moving the car down the road. https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/how-efficient-is-your-cars-engine


1

She should have just called one of her homeless constituents; they could have picked her up in their RV and driven her the rest of the way to her rally.


110

Carole Baskin vibes


40

A percent example of how the countries transportation infrastructure is far, far, far from being able to support and all electric car demand by the green new deal types. Full recharges take hours. A gas powered car is stopped at the gas station for maybe 5 minutes. Can you imagine dozens of electric cars crowded around a charging station where each car is sitting, charging for hours! Anyone who thinks electric cars can simply replace gas cars anytime the government mandates it, clearly doesn’t understand the associated problems.


138

Who thinks that?


-72

A full charge at home or a level 2 charger which is usually 240 volts at 30 amps takes hours. If you are traveling a longer distance you need level 3 charging which can get you an extra 200 miles in about 15 minutes, but just depends on the chargers output. She is obviously clueless.


67

Most modern EVs are capable of level 3 charging, which takes minutes not hours to do a full recharge.


Can you imagine dozens of electric cars crowded around a charging station where each car is sitting?

Yes, actually. Tesla recently opened a 56 car charging station in Firebaugh, California, as well as a 72 car station a few months later. Unlike gas pumps, which need to be near a central tank for a variety of reasons including safety, EV chargers can easily be spread throughout a large parking lot. And there happen to be plenty of parking lots at malls and shopping centers conveniently near freeways.


It’s only an insurmountable problem if you lack imagination. 110 years ago we also didn’t have a gas station infrastructure yet somehow we managed to figure that one out.


-3

I charge my car at home. I have a 220 plug in. I have 13,000 miles on my car I bought it in August. Yes, the Gas station is 5 minutes, or 10 minutes or whatever. It’s almost $5.00 a gallon. Can you gas up at home?

I see people constantly posting opinions. what if people researched for 2 minutes. if you notice the up or down votes are coincidently obvious party lines. I get over 250 miles per charge. someone said we went to gas engines over 100 years ago. Cable cars didn’t. It was based on multiple factors. If you think it’s inconvenient, so is changing oil, tune ups etc. My car takes off like a rocket so getting on the freeway is completely comfortable. Take a moment to look at Lowes in Paso where there are a LOT of charging stations. Paso has charging stations at the Bank of America. Rest areas, etc. Here is something to look at so your next post will have actual information. https://www.plugshare.com


-12

And of course your sensible factual comment got downvoted by the trolls that feel that unless you violently oppose anything that could be good for the planet, you must be a far left socialist.


-16

This is why we decided to move from electric cars to the gasoline engine 100 years ago….Buahahahahahahahaha


79

So this is the Ex-Mayor of San Luis Obispo, home of the voting Engineering Students who attend that world famous California Polytechnic University. She is also the factor that pushed for all electric homes and now is in news because, at your expense, she has proven her electric car to NOT be a viable method of travel. I think she’s ready for Hollywood.


132

The key word is “try”. What have you done lately to salvage this planet? Or are you leaving that for your kids and grandkids to worry about?


-87

“she has proven her electric car to NOT be a viable method of travel” . That’s like saying “I fell off my bike when I was learning to ride it, therefore bikes are not a viable method of travel” Fact is that the vast majority of EV drivers have learned how to charge an EV on a road trip and usually plan their trip ahead of time so they know where to charge and how long it will take. There are apps for that, either in the car (i.e Tesla) or on your phone. Heidi made a rookie mistake of not planning her trip and not using the best app for her needs.


-2

I see charging stations at hotels and malls all over CA…I guess you first have to know what one looks like…..Teee heee heee heee


60

Heidi unravels. Where was Quinn when she needed her?


Our former mayor should have just taken a bong hit. That would have calmed her down.


106

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!


“Defund the police…..Wait; I can’t find a charging station….what’s their number again?”


139
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