Was the car that broke down near a West Virginian coal mine in September 2022 electric?

Question

Recently, Donald Trump shared a link (via Truth Social) to a September 2, 2022 Western journal article that described an electric car needing to be pushed up to a coal plant to get charged.

“Today at our mine off Corridor H an electric car from DC ran out of battery at the road entrance to the mine. Someone called one of our foreman and told him a car was broke down in the middle of our haul road,” [Senator Randy Smith] wrote.

However, the picture from the article looks like they are charging the 12 volt battery under the hood, not any sort of main drive battery pack.

Is this really an EV? The only other picture was from behind but it was not possible to see if it had an exhaust pipe.

There's a side claim here: 'Giving the vehicle a tow was out of the question, he wrote, because “it was all plastic underneath and nothing to hook up to.”' I looked into that, and it turns out you need to take a screw-in tow hook from its location in the boot, remove a plastic cover from the bumper, and screw the hook into the revealed hole. [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOG5dLWyy3c&ab_channel=ChannelRon). So strictly false, but I would have failed to find it too, so I am not casting stones. — Oddthinking, Sep 07 '22 at 14:46
Uh, don't all modern unibody cars and SUVs use a screw-in tow hook? — Nimloth, Sep 07 '22 at 15:29
Typo - linked WJ article appears to be dated to 4 Sep 2022 - not 2002. The article references a 3 Sep 2022 Twitter post by WTRF 7 News. — vsfDawg, Sep 07 '22 at 15:33
How did it "break down"? Seems to me it just ran out of fuel. — Daniel R Hicks, Sep 07 '22 at 23:39
@Nimloth: *shrug* I have never owned, or needed to tow, a car manufactured this century. — Oddthinking, Sep 08 '22 at 10:11
@DanielRHicks: Sounds like you exclude "ran out of fuel" from the category of "broken down". I think many others would include it. — Oddthinking, Sep 08 '22 at 10:13

Nimloth · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-07T18:35:00.513

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The vehicle appears to be a Kia Niro EV.

As mentioned in the comments, the Niro has only been available as a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid or a fully electric vehicle. The first-generation Kia Niro EV (fully-electric) had a black panel instead of a front grille, and this black panel is visible in the photo.

On the fully-electric version, the inlet for charging the high-voltage battery is next to the left headlight, corresponding to the location in the picture. See this article for close-up pictures of the charging port location. As shown on Wikipedia above, the plug-in hybrid version has the inlet on the left front fender instead.

Although most Level 1 (120-Volt) mobile chargers have black cords, a cursory Google search shows some Kia-branded chargers with orange-coloured cords.

edited Sep 07 '22 at 18:35

answered Sep 07 '22 at 01:29

Nimloth

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@JiminyCricket. Click on the wikipedia link. The Kia Niro exists only as fully electric or hybrid. So if hybrids are part of electric than this is an electric car. – quarague Sep 07 '22 at 06:35
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The 1st gen electric Kia Niro had a distinctive panel covering the space that would be for the engine air intake grill on versions with a petrol engine, and that cover is visible in the photo (above the reg plate). So yes, this is a (very unremarkable) photo of an EV charging (not sure why it warrants a news report - if it was considered newsworthy every time a petrol-engine car ran out of fuel, we'd never hear about anything else) – user56reinstatemonica8 Sep 07 '22 at 08:40
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@user56reinstatemonica8 isn't the point supposed to be "oh look we can't manage without coal"? Although the coal has nothing to do with it (and it no longer powers cars). Yeah, we do know that the driving range of electric cars isn't great yet, but the battery technology is improving rapidly. – Weather Vane Sep 07 '22 at 13:21
@quarague Ideally all the info, including your explanation should be in the body of the answer as protection against link-rot. – Jiminy Cricket. Sep 07 '22 at 13:26
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@user56reinstatemonica8 Another question is did it actually run out of charge or was it setup for a photo op. From the picture alone it can't be said if it is actually out of charge and charging or just setup to look like it is. – Joe W Sep 07 '22 at 14:43
@user56reinstatemonica8: I s'pose the newsworthy stuff is that you can take a jerrycan to a stranded gasoline vehicle, but you can't do that with an EV. The punchline of the local news piece appears to have been “This just shows you coal miners are good people and will go out of their way to help anyone friend or foe". I guess the EV (from DC) being rather a foe here. – Fizz Sep 07 '22 at 15:28
@user56reinstatemonica8 I also fail to see why this question was posted here other than yet another "Look how silly the other side is". – pipe Sep 07 '22 at 18:45
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@user56reinstatemonica8 "if it was considered newsworthy every time a petrol-engine car ran out of fuel, we'd never hear about anything else" Indeed, [AAA got 194,000 out of gas calls in a single quarter](https://www.thedrive.com/news/gas-prices-arent-all-to-blame-for-people-running-on-empty-aaa) recently. In order to make the news when you run out of gas you need to also [commit aggravated arson or something](https://www.nj.com/camden/2022/05/man-runs-out-of-gas-sets-smoke-shop-on-fire-damages-other-businesses-during-meltdown-cops-say.html). – Laurel Sep 07 '22 at 23:37
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@pipe, this question was posted to check if this car was indeed an electric vehicle, as claimed by the article. The reasons to question this are 1) the unusual charging setup 2) the lack of any pictures with identifying make/model/components (exhaust absence for example). – johnDanger Sep 08 '22 at 20:59
@WeatherVane I would caution against over-stating battery range. EV battery range is worse, is *not* improving rapidly (limits of chemistry) but is still good enough for a whole lot of people. – user253751 Sep 09 '22 at 09:44
@user253751 I was listening to a radio program, which stated that a battery with an energy density equivalent to that of hydrocarbon fuels is achievable in the lab. – Weather Vane Sep 09 '22 at 09:48
@WeatherVane eh.... we'll see. Wouldn't count on it until it hatches. – user253751 Sep 09 '22 at 09:51
@WeatherVane A number of news programs also claimed back in May that a nuclear-powered flying cruise ship was "in development now" which turned out to be somebody's Reddit post on r/worldbuilding. – A. R. Sep 09 '22 at 18:26
@AndrewRay it was BBC Radio 4, a credible source, an entire program discussing the state of battery development. "Limited by chemistry": at one time it was thought that powered flight was a scientific impossibility. At another time, at was thought that a human would not be able to withstand travelling at 60 mph. – Weather Vane Sep 09 '22 at 18:40
@WeatherVane the point is that you don't really get big gradual improvements in battery capacity. You get very slight progress by optimizing what's known, and then someone discovers a new type of battery that's much better. – user253751 Sep 11 '22 at 23:33
@user253751 so who has ruled out any such improvements, and why? If such possibilities were invalidated by "what we know now" we would still be rubbing two sticks together (or in this case fur). And technological progress is hastened by need. – Weather Vane Sep 11 '22 at 23:35
@WeatherVane you stated "battery technology is improving rapidly". This is not accurate. Battery capacity technology improves very slowly except when a new type of battery is discovered. Reliability and longevity can be improved, but you weren't talking about those, you were talking about range. – user253751 Sep 11 '22 at 23:37
@user253751 The tech is still very new compared to the gas powered car and it is not impossible to get larger breakthroughs. – Joe W Sep 11 '22 at 23:44

Was the car that broke down near a West Virginian coal mine in September 2022 electric?

1 Answers1