No Electric Car for Me

Written by Roger Simon on November 28, 2023. Posted in Current News

By the time you’re reading this, Thanksgiving will be over—hope you had a good one—and I’m the full-bore octogenarian I referred to in the last newsletter

If you’re interested, Cars Direct is advertising “Best Black Friday Car Deals for 2023.”

Now, I’m not talking about hybrids, just EVs that are powered by externally charged batteries.

Regarding hybrids, I bought a Prius years ago and drove everybody crazy on the freeways by driving 55 in a 65 zone in pursuit of the brass ring of 75 miles per gallon via what was then called “hypermiling.”

The car felt like a tin can to me, and after a while I sold it. Nevertheless, at some point I might consider one with a more comfortable interior. A car that can generate its own electricity makes some sense.

Not so an EV.

Elon Musk is clearly a brilliant guy, but the most salient part of his brilliance may be his salesmanship.

A few years ago, a few of those same octogenarian, then septuagenarian, tennis players I spoke of above, the more affluent ones anyway, started to show up in Teslas.

I have to admit I had a tinge of jealousy. The tech was pretty cool. That mammoth computer screen—assuming you could take your eyes off it while driving, and I wasn’t sure I could—was more than a little impressive.

I was told you could surf the internet while waiting to have your battery charged. (That I could do it on my phone too didn’t immediately penetrate.)

And that big boy was fast, super-fast. You could go from 0 to 60 in the time you could say “Jack Robinson.”

But was that useful? Where could you do it, unless you wanted to spend your days at a track?

I recalled that years back (1980ish) I had bought a used Porsche 911 from a friend. I took it out a few nights later to drive down to a motel in Palm Desert where I did some of my writing then.

I was barreling along on the empty freeway when I saw a light in my rear-view mirror. Uh-oh. Not being a complete idiot, I didn’t slam on the brakes, but eased up on the accelerator.

It was to no avail as the trailing car soon had its red light whirling and I was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol. “How fast do you think you were going?” the officer asked me. “Eighty?” I said hopefully. “I had you clocked at a hundred and ten,” he replied, but added, “I’m going to write you up for eighty, because otherwise they’d pull your license. Don’t do this again.”

I didn’t. Not only that, I sold the Porsche as quickly as I could.

Fast cars mean nothing to me, with the exception of merging onto freeways, but you don’t need a Tesla for that.

In fact, one thing you don’t need a Tesla for is to abate ‘anthropogenic global warming’, assuming that exists to any serious extent. (At this point, it’s hard to believe anybody thinks it does other than those—scientists and business people—profiteering from their opinions.)

But here’s something you might not have noticed when pulling into a gas station to pay $4.00 for a gallon of regular.

From Newsmax:

“A new study out of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has received contributions from oil giants Exxon and Chevron, finds that the actual hidden costs of fueling an electric vehicle, which some allege equates to $1.21 per gallon of gas, is more like $17 per gallon—all things considered.”

And what are those things to be considered?

“The stark reality for proponents of EVs and for the dreamers in the federal government, who are using fuel economy regulations to force manufacturers to produce ever more EVs, is that the true cost of an EV is in no way close to a comparable ICEV [internal combustion engine vehicle].

“Our conservative estimate is that the average EV accrues $48,698 in subsidies and $4,569 in extra charging and electricity costs over a 10-year period, for a total cost of $53,267, or $16.12 per equivalent gallon of gasoline.

Without increased and sustained government favors, EVs will remain more expensive than ICEVs for many years to come.”

Call it the high cost of virtue signaling. But there’s more. Nicole James, an Australian writer, wrote a rather witty satirical article for The Epoch Times: “18 Reasons Why You Really Need an Electric Car.”

It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here are a few tidbits:

“3. Forget Bill Gates and his private jets; your guilty pleasure is the toasty warmth of a winterised garage. Electric cars, much like their owners, detest the cold. Embrace the synergy by parking your electric chariot in a heated garage—a warm welcome indeed.

“11. Are you concerned about pollution emissions in first-world countries? Just shift the burden to the third world where toxic substances required for EV batteries become an unavoidable reality.

“16. Do you have a soft spot for China? You can acknowledge their prowess in lithium processing 40 percent of the world’s raw lithium and dominating the market with an 80 percent share.”

You get the picture. Ms. James’s 18 reasons could easily be doubled.

I ain’t buyin’, Mr. Musk, but the way things are going, I might be interested in your space flight. (Just kidding. I think things are actually turning for the better. The election of libertarian Javier Milei in Argentina is a harbinger of good things to come.)

See more here youmaker.com

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