Peter Zeihan Made-up and False Claims About EVs for His Business

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Peter Zeihan made a series of mostly unsupported and false claims about electric vehicles while being interviewed on the Joe Rogan show.

James Stephenson goes through all of the over forty aspects of what Peter Zeihan said.

Here is the video and I have below screen shots of the thorough take down of each unsupported or false claims.

High-Level Summary – ICE Combustion Engine Cars Are Dying But Spend $7 Billion/year on Advertising and More on Consulting

ICE car makers like Toyota, GM and Honda spend a total of about $7 billion per year on advertising. They and the oil industry have conferences and can invite Zeihan to come and give them a pep talk. The legacy car industry Titanic will take a few more years for the decline to get really bad but it is already bad. Honda lost over 30% of sales in the US in one year.

Central EV Claim by Peter Zeihan on the Joe Rogan Show: Zeihan claims that the electric car revolution will start to fail or mostly fail around 2030 and “disappear” in the 2030s.

This serves a few purposes. This shows that he is on the side of big auto and big oil. He is saying invite and pay me to speak and I can give you happy talk that EVs won’t crush you. Zeihan gets invited to oil conferences all the time. It also says any TV or other program, please invite Zeihan to give the anti-EV side. The anti-EV claims can be all lies or made up but those are irrelevant if he can say them in a cute way in a few minutes.

Zeihan and Friedman Have Decades of Grift. Anti-Japan Grift in the 1990s. Anti-China Grift from 2000 Etc…

Peter Zeihan and is mentor George Friedman have a history of making high-profile claims that end up being wrong. There is book sales, public speaking and consulting that they get for being on one side of the argument on important issues or trends.

This is a little business like being one of the anti-Japan guy or one of the anti-China guys or pro-oil guy.

He launched his own firm, Zeihan on Geopolitics, in 2012 in order to specialize in customized executive briefings for his clients. Prior to going independent, Zeihan worked for twelve years with the geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor.

Tesla Model Y is the best-selling car by revenue in 2022. It outsold Ford F150 and the Toyota Corolla for dollars sold. There were 796,583 Model Y sold globally in 2022.

The Toyota Camry was down 13% in China sales in 2022 and the Corolla did not make the top ten in China.

The Camry was down alomst 6% in the US and again the Corolla did not make the top ten in the US.

The Tesla Model Y will be the best selling car in units in 2023. Over 1.1 million will be sold in 2023.

Zeihan EV Claims are Fundamentally Wrong and Stupid and Disconnected from Actual Business Reality

Zeihan said many wrong things, so that going through them is a too long did not read situation.

The three main ones are Electric cars are no cleaner than gas cars and we will run out of materials for EVs and it is not worth putting those materials into EVs because it is better to put them into other more green things.

The first one is a pure lie. He says it takes 1-2 years to make back the carbon to build the EV and that energy for EV is all coming from coal. Coal is 60% of energy in China and dropping and some of the main factories for batteries and EV use a lot of solar and batteries.

There will be challenges around 2030 to keep growing beyond 6 terawatt hours per year of lithium batteries. This is ten times more than in 2022. However, sodium ion batteries are scaling this year and they use no lithium. All other materials can be more easily substituted or used far more efficiently. It is also not a matter of some dictator deciding if EVs get copper or some other product. If demand is more than supply then prices go up and whoever is willing to pay gets the material. A maker $30,000 or $50,000 EV that needs $1000 worth of copper instead of $400 can afford to pay an extra $600 and the same for inflation onother materials. if the profit per car is 20% that is $6000-10000 per car. What other products might get cut back if they are less profitable?

There is also no global dictator saying that we only put materials into things based upon how efficiently green they are. Otherwise, hundreds of billions money would go into growing a 2 trillion trees to take out a trillion tons of CO2 and offset ta hundred years of emissions. The investment goes to who is willing to pay and those willing to pay more make more profit.

25 thoughts on “Peter Zeihan Made-up and False Claims About EVs for His Business”

  2. This is the 2nd anti-Zeihan article by Brian Wang that I have seen in the past two days. I know whom is correct, B. Wang or P. Zeihan, but they both appear to be in the same profession which then makes me think Mr. Wang is attempting to damage Zeihan’s business while promoting his own.

    Appears Mr. Wang’s articles are little more than an advertisement for his own business and interests.

  3. I agree with Zeihan. Digging up EV materials with diesal powered mining machines makes you wonder how much pollution is created in the production chain to produce the vehicles then the electricity is mostly carbon based. Look at Diablo Canyon it alone could reduce emissions more than millions of EV’s but instead of being retained with a plant for green hydrogen production its replaced by fossil fuel plants one of which is slated to be coal.

  4. Zeihan’s feel-good pitch for corporate and middle America follows. Falling birthrates due to globalized industrial capitalism are driving its collapse. Geography has predetermined the winners in the resulting disrupted world. Most countries are screwed. America will be OKAY, due to its preeminent geography, its dollar, and a barely adequate ratio of young to old. Climate change is real, but the species survival imperative, plus the profit motive, plus technological innovation are not capable of making a successful transition to renewable energy. So don’t worry about climate change affecting your lifestyle; everything is cool for the USA.

  5. Zeihan’s feel-good theses for corporate and middle America follows. Falling birthrates due to globalized industrial capitalism are driving its collapse. Geography has predetermined the winners in the resulting disrupted world. Most countries are screwed. America will be OKAY, due to its preeminent geography, its dollar, and a barely adequate ratio of young to old. Climate change is real, but the species survival imperative, plus the profit motive, plus technological innovation are not capable of making a successful transition to renewable energy. So don’t worry about climate change affecting your lifestyle; everything is cool for the USA. [Implicit] Keep your fingers crossed that global economic and population collapse won’t topple civilization in North America. (Corollary: Maybe dial back the xenophobia, because we may need many millions of low-skill immigrants pretty soon to supplement our birthrate.)

  6. Zeihan’s feel-good theses for corporate and middle America:
    1) Falling birthrates due to globalized industrial capitalism are driving its collapse.
    2) Geography has predetermined the winners in the resulting disrupted world. Most countries are screwed.
    3) America will be OKAY, due to its preeminent geography, its dollar, and a barely adequate ratio of young to old.
    4) Climate change is real, but the species survival imperative, plus the profit motive, plus technological innovation are not capable of making a successful transition to renewable energy. So don’t worry about climate change affecting your lifestyle; everything is cool for the USA.
    5) [Implicit] Keep your fingers crossed that global economic and population collapse won’t topple civilization in North America.
    6) (Corollary: Maybe dial back the xenophobia, because we may need many millions of low-skill immigrants pretty soon to supplement our birthrate.)

  7. Peter’s fundamental analysis of EV deals with supply chains and their securitization. I’ve worked in these regions and seen these mines. There is no way these materials will get to market without the US military paying for it, which means the US tax payer. Since the American taxpayers have decided they don’t want foreign intervention the costs of these materials will sky rocket. I like EV because I think electric motors are superior but the batteries pose a problem, better to look for alternative and diverse fuels. Whether or not you agree with all Peters predictions disregarding his concerns about deglobalization is ignorant even if you believe he is a shill for big petroleum.

    • electric cars, trucks and batteries are rapidly approaching a trillion industry, well over a few hundred billion dollars. There would not be some kind of EV only supply chain hit from deglobalization. Global trade should hit a record $32 trillion for 2022. About $800B to $1 trillion in oil exports. The US will keep buying and selling trillions and will not stop having the Navy patrol the worlds oceans.

      • Hey, child and slave labor in the country that supplies 70% of the world’s cobalt is ok? China, key supplier of lithium carbonate will always supply us, right? Like Russian gas?
        No major source of battery ingredients in the US?
        Lithium-ion batteries never spontaneously combust and sink ships and burn buildings – look away please.
        The electric grid can handle the demands, even when all cooking stoves are electric.
        Every village needs an idiot.

        • The major suppliers of Lithium in the world are Australia and Chile. China isn’t going to be able to cut those places off from world trade without World War 3.

  8. All predictions are wrong, if you look deeply enough. That is the nature of the business.

    The materials problem with EVs is a serious issue. You cannot just wave it away with unproven predictions of future storage breakthroughs. Perhaps by 2040 or 2050.

  9. It’s probably a good idea to leave your ideology out of analysis like this. I’ve read all of Peter’s books and viewed most of his appearances. The analytic claims he makes about EV adoption by the mass public are supported by a great body of evidence, from all corners of the globe.
    When ideology overwhelms objective analytics, you embarrass yourself.

  10. If you don’t believe raw materials for EVs will be a significant problem and the primary limiting factor in both their adoption and any claim they make to being a greener alternative to ICE, you should visit a cobalt mine.

    At this point EVs are a perfect example of the kind of externalization costs that have led us to this environmental crisis.

    The only environmentally sound approach is to do less, more efficiently, for smaller benefit to fewer.

    • Iron LFP batteries (fastest growing battery 300% per year vs nickel at 150-200% per yaer) and now largest amount of batteries in China use now cobalt or nickel)

      • I hear all this constant whining about kids mining cobalt, but I bet, that these kids would rather mine cobalt for a little pocket money than to hoe a garden all day for nothing. I’m not saying this is good, but there are many parts of Africa where there is zero opportunity and just like White kids who worked in the “satanic mills” in the early industrial revolution, it may very well be that mining cobalt is far more satisfying and profitable than their alternatives.

        • Fair point. Think it’s worth remember that the Oil indistry rapes the Earth everywhere it goes – so what if there’s a big hole in the ground for EV materials. People should see the iron ore mines and nobody is suggesting we scale back steel production.

  11. Like so many people. Follow the money. Zeihan makes a livelihood out of peddling facts and half truths to audiences that so want him to be true and pay him money to do so. Exploration and challenging his facts blows up his narrative and exposes his biases IMHO. Realistically can one be an expert on the Ukraine/Russia war, China, demography and the sustainability of the EV industry? Not really!! So he is quite literally talking his book

    It is actually quite hard finding plausible truths in this world.

    • He predicted the UKraine war a few years before it happened. His analysis is based on shifting prime factors that cannot be changed in the near term.

      • I have made hundreds of public predictions a few years before they happened. https://www.metaculus.com/accounts/profile/110947/
        I am right 90% of the time on those predictions.

        Zeihan also thought and predicted that Russia would roll over Ukraine in weeks to months.
        He looks at the number of fighting age men in Russia and expected the decline from 14 million and used this is the reasoning for his timing. He did not look at how the 2014-2022 war in Crimea was going. He and his mentor have also predicted many more wars and conflicts. Friedman predicted a second US-Japan war in the 1990s.

      • 1. Zeihan predicted the Ukraine war AFTER Russia started grabbing territory in 2014. So it was more of a “this trend will continue” than a radical prediction.
        2. Zeihan used his demographic data to argue that Russia would grab Ukraine, and Poland, and the Baltic states, and half of Romania. AND he predicted that this would be finished by 2019.
        And it isn’t just “he was out by a couple of years”. No, the very model he was using said that Russia had to do this before the end of 2019. (Because that’s when their young male population started to collapse. His very theory said that Russia could not do it later.
        So his prediction was wrong. He explicitly said what did not happen.

        But… if you just look at the headline “Ziehan said Russia invade Ukraine” then it looks like he was right. So he’s currently on a roll of being “The guy who predicted the war” and so he’s on all the TV/internet shows.

        The really annoying thing is that his original analysis might be correct. Maybe Russia really did have only one chance to regain the western edge of their empire, and they had to do it before 2019. But he ignored the possibility that Russia would get it wrong.

        The 1913 Fallacy if you will: In the years before WW1, a lot of people were arguing that there could be no major European war.
        Because modern (sic) weapons and interconnected economies meant that such a war would destroy the world. They were absolutely correct.
        Therefore, such a war could not happen. They were absolutely wrong.

        1913 Fallacy: Just because something is disastrously, suicidally, stupid does not mean that it will not be done.

        Which brings us neatly to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  12. Zeihan purposely and erroneously uses static analysis to analyze dynamic problems to fool uncritically thinking people with his FUD.

    • Zeihan’s feel-good pitch for corporate and middle America follows. Falling birthrates due to globalized industrial capitalism are driving its collapse. Geography has predetermined the winners in the resulting disrupted world. Most countries are screwed. America will be OKAY, due to its preeminent geography, its dollar, and a barely adequate ratio of young to old. Climate change is real, but the species survival imperative, plus the profit motive, plus technological innovation are not capable of making a successful transition to renewable energy. So don’t worry about climate change affecting your lifestyle; everything is cool for the USA.

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