Since they can’t sell people on electric cars, the next best thing is to outlaw internal combustion-engined cars. In order to force people into electric cars.
The German Bundesrat (their version of our Congress) just passed a bipartisan agreement toward that end. The legislative details have yet to be worked out, but the idea is to impose a comprehensive ban on the use of cars powered by internal combustion on not just German roads but all European Union roads as well.
By 2030 – just 14 years from now.
This is supposed to curb “climate warming emissions,” in particular carbon dioxide, says Green Party representative Oliver Krischer. “If the Paris Agreement (on global warming) is to be taken seriously, no new combustion engines should be allowed on roads.”
The Paris Agreement Krischer refers to urges a “review (of) current practices of taxation and dues with regard to a stimulation of emissions-free mobility.”
Italics added.
Why speak in euphemisms?
“Stimulation” = punitive taxes designed to make driving other than an electric car cost-prohibitive.
And of course (but never spoken) electric cars will be that, too. 
Remember your Heinlein. There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL) and electricity isn’t free energy and batteries aren’t cheap. Plugging in seems free because (for now) there is no meter attached to the port and whatever it costs to feed juice to your EV is either folded in to your general household utility bill or (if it’s a public charger) it’s “free”… for now.
Until they start to charge you for a charge.
It’ll be “free” just long enough to get you gulled into believing in such an idiocy as “free” energy.
And batteries.
We keep hearing they’ll get cheaper. Maybe so. To some extent, they have. But right now, they still cost a fortune and until they cost a fraction of their current cost, electric cars will never be an economical alternative to a car powered by internal combustion.
Which is why it is necessary to massively subsidize electric cars via tax (and carbon) credits and so on. Absent these, not even the stupid rich would pony up. And for the average person, a $30,000-plus car (whether electric or IC-powered) makes as much economic sense as a snow shovel in Phoenix.
Buy an EV because you think it’s cool, because it’s quick or for any of several other reasons. But as an economic decision, it’s wasteful and frivolous.
And this “emissions free” business?
These Green People are immensely dishonest or immensely uninformed.
Unless it becomes possible to harness lightning bolts or extract energy from the vacuum somehow (and in a “clean” manner) man-made electricity will continue to entail the production of emissions. Coal and oil and natural gas burning (to make electricity) produces plenty of C02. Does it make it any difference, global warming-wise, whether the C02 is produced at the smokestack vs. a tailpipe?
Yes, there is nuclear power generation. It also produces “greenhouse” gasses (water vapor at the cooling towers) and (much worse, Gaia-wise) radioactive waste that lingers for thousands of years and which is immensely more harmful both to the earf and to the human beings who inhabit it than asserted harms caused by an inert gas (C02).
It’s fatuity wrapped in effrontery.
And the true object is not a Happy Earth Dance. It is to get us walking. Out of cars, period. Ban the IC engine, then present as the alternative electric cars that most of the population can’t afford. The end result is the same: A fraction of the population – the very affluent – enjoy the privilege of personal transportation. The rest of us get public transportation.
Or, we walk.
Our radius of action limited to urban cores; our movements on schedule and coordinated. The Germans – bless them – have a word for this: Gleichschaltung.
And some will cheer this.
An article in Gizmodo concluded its coverage of this business with the following noxiousness: “The fact that the country with the fourth-largest auto industry in the world is spearheading such sweeping changes is a big sign of where we’re headed. It’s a road paved with slow-moving politicians making incremental changes and hoping the industry will warm up to the idea of not killing us all.”
But it’s not global warming (or climate change or whatever they’re asserting now) that’s “killing us all.” It’s the reality of economic ruin and what that will actually mean to the average person, if this all comes to pass.
The elites – guys like Krischer in Deutschland and his marching-in-step gebruder (and schwestern) here in Amerika (which includes, unfortunately, The Donald, who has either bought into the “climate change” shibboleth or is fearful of questioning it) will continue to have cars, IC and otherwise.
Because for them, cost is no object.
The object is to impose costs on us.
And don’t rest easy thinking this is just a German Thing. See the above point about the world’s fourth largest manufacturer of cars. If Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW and Opel go all-in for electric (VW already has) the die will have been cast.
Once upon a long time ago, another German said the following, or close enough: In America they are filled with curiosity and wondering, is he coming? When is he coming?
Don’t worry! He’s coming… .
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Meh.
My next vehicle will be something like the Volt.
Not because I’m some greenie, but because I’m hedging against a return to $4.50/gallon gasoline
(I can easily see coming a $1-$2/gallon combined state/federal fuel tax to “rebuild our infrastructure”)
Did the same when I needed to replace my central A/C – replaced it with a heat pump with natural gas backup.
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are dwarfed by those of even a moderate volcanic eruption.
It seems the performance specifications for electric vehicles are obtained from dry, warm, flat places like California. In the real world that I live in where there are mountains everywhere, sub-zero winters, snow, and towns are small and distant the electrical vehicle would perform poorly. Also utility vehicles, pickups, trucks etc. have no electric replacements. I see no end to petrol fueled vehicles.
Hi Eric,
I’ve read a lot of your articles through Lew Rockwell’s website and your anti-electric vehicle arguments seem like more of a loyalty to IC cars than anything.
You rail on the tax credits given to individuals that buy the EVs, which is just a reduction of of their taxes, because you “are sick of paying for other people’s cars” (or something like that), yet completely ignore the much more insidious corporate welfare given to the makers of the IC cars, where your tax money actually is going to the companies as a subsidy. Bailouts, anyone? These subsidies make the tax credits you hate look like peanuts in comparison. This has been pointed out to you in the comments and your response always seems to avoid directly responding to these facts. As Ron Paul said a while back, he supports ALL tax credits, regardless of the nature and only wishes there were so many that nobody had to pay any taxes.
Second, while you are correct the electricity used to charge EVs are produced from burning fossil fuels (mostly natural gas), you seem to completely ignore the fact that there is a very large difference between the efficiency of burning gas directly from and IC engine (none) and power plants, which are designed to recapture much of the energy originally lost, making the use of those fossil fuels something like 60% more efficient. So yes, it still uses fossil fuels but not nearly as much. In my instance, when I get my EV I will actually be emission free because of solar panels that I have installed on my home.
And for me, global warming is not even on my radar; however, breathing clean air and drinking clean water is. I have two daughters and we live in the San Joaquin Valley in California (worst air in America) so any less exhaust going into my daughters’ lungs are a welcome sigh for me.
If you have the time, it would be great to see your responses to my two quibbles. Otherwise, i enjoy reading your posts.
Thanks,
Josh
Hi Josh,
My loyalty is to non-coercive interactions!
That’s one problem with electric cars: They are heavily subsidized (coercive wealth redistribution) as a necessary consequence of their significant economic and functional liabilities. Very few people would buy one absent these subsidies – and these of course don’t cure the functional problems, in particular the unacceptable (to most people) recharge times. An IC car can be refueled in minutes almost anywhere. An EV takes a minimum of 20-45 minutes to recover a charge sufficient to travel a fraction of the distance – and that assumes a “fast” charger. If one isn’t available, the recharge takes hours. It is absurd to imagine most or even many people would put up with that, leaving aside the massive bottlenecks at charging stations that would ensue if EVs were out there in large numbers.
The emissions issue is a bogey. Cars built since the ’90s are incredibly “clean” in terms of their exhaust, which is overwhelmingly water vapor and CO2, neither of which have any relation to air quality or water quality.
And, what would the impact of millions of electric cars be on the grid? What would the total emissions output at utility plants be in consequence?
But the chief problem continues to be the economic one: EVs are too expensive to be other than affluent people’s indulgences. They make no sense as a way to reduce the cost of driving. The force-feeding of EVs will simply make driving more expensive – unsustainably so for the average person, who cannot indulge a $30,000 EV (much less a $60,000 Tesla).
PS: I disagree with RP in re tax credits. They amount to government picking winners – and thereby, creating losers – as opposed to the market doing the winnowing. Put another way, subsidizing EVs puts economically viable cars at a disadvantage – artificially created – and that’s why they are a moral wrong.
It would be interesting to see the emissions comparison for 1,000 miles of driving between an IC car and an EV. The IC car’s emissions will, of course, be taken at the tail pipe and that of the EV will be taken at the smokestack. Has anyone, to your knowledge, done such a comparison?
Hi Meta,
I agree – but (to my knowledge) no one has done this comparison – probably because it is hard to individually quantify an EV’s “smokestack” emissions while it is very easy to quantify tailpipe emissions.
While not a direct comparison, but looking at Road and Track’s long term test of their Tesla Model S, they’re getting just 2/3 of the “mpg” on the sticker, which puts it just barely above a Prius C or TDI VW. Given that much electricity is generated by fossil fuels, the carbon footprint is likely equal to that of a small car, or in other words, a negligible improvement.
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2015-tesla-model-s-p85d-long-term-test-update-review
Hi AJ,
Tesla won’t send me one to drive. Guess why? It can’t make it here unless it’s via flatbed. Either that or they pay a driver to spend an overnight halfway here. Maybe two nights.
No joke.
Same issue with the VW Golf e and others. Press cars for journalists in my area come from Maryland, New York or Atlanta, depending on the brand. No worries sending an IC car here (SW VA) from any of those locations… but an electric car?
Huge problems.
And that’s in summer…
“PS: I disagree with RP in re tax credits. They amount to government picking winners – and thereby, creating losers – as opposed to the market doing the winnowing. Put another way, subsidizing EVs puts economically viable cars at a disadvantage – artificially created – and that’s why they are a moral wrong.”
Yeah, I hear you. What you stated is certainly true, but I would still rather people had an opportunity to keep some of their tax money if they so choose. And, of course, I’m talking about nonrefundable tax credits like the Child Tax Credit, or do you think that is bad as well? I’m not talking about refundable tax credits like the Earned Income Tax, which is just another form of welfare. Until the day comes when the IRS is abolished, tax credits are the best we can do…
Hi Josh,
I get being practical and don’t condemn people for taking advantage of such given the situation. However, at some point, if we wish to end or even diminish a system based on grift – a hyena economy – we will each of us have to refrain from taking what’s not rightly ours, even if we could do so. Refrain from participating in these oily scams that advantage one group at the expense of another – with government always winning.
Note the way elections (this one, for instance) have devolved into an auction. A debate over who will get what – taken from whom.
Not a word spoken about individual rights – and the moral wrongs of collectivism and coercion.
I heard an interesting discussion of income tax reforms on the econ talk podcast a few weeks ago. The argument was to move to a flat tax above $x amount, no exceptions or deductions. Then, if congress wants to subsidize an activity, they should just pass a bill to do it. The same result happens, without micromanaging the tax code. It also makes it much more transparent who gets favors and who doesn’t.
Of course the problem is then congressmen can’t receive bribes from the interested parties…
Surely you’re joshin me. A reduction in “their” taxes is an increase in mine. Govt. never, ever reduces taxes. So when one party gets reduced tax WTF do you think that money is made up? And why should any company get a reduce tax for anything. The free market can figure out the price of everything.
Plus it warps markets, makes it harder for the free market to recover back to where consumers would take it.
Thanks for the response Eric.
Eightsouthman, what is it made up of? Debt. Of course, debt is bad, but what special tax increased in your 1040 to make specific credits? Your rates didn’t go up (unless you went to a higher tax bracket) did they? Or, other than those that changed because of Obamacare, your deductions didn’t change, did they? So, no, you didn’t pay more taxes to cover for these credits.
Regardless, the problem I see with these arguments is that it seems Eric is ONLY concerned about these tax credits when they are child’s play compared to the actual subsidies the auto industries receive, but I don’t see him arguing about the evils of the IC engine that has been the beneficiary of these subsidies, bailouts, etc. for Go knows how long.
I am a libertarian free-market enthusiast, so I don’t disagree with either of your sentiments. But when I can keep $7,500 of taxes, plus 30% of the purchase of my solar, I am going to take advantage of it if it makes my life more economically sound. I’m not thanking the government, just taking advantage of not having to pay for gas, change my oil, and live off the sun.
Josh
Hi Josh,
The auto industry has received subsidies, no question. However, the IC car is itself a functionally and economically viable product (unlike electric cars).
Even more so if you take the government out of the equation. Right now, today, we could have brand-new cars (with AC, power windows and so on) that deliver 60 MPG (or more) and cost less than $10,000.
But because of government, we are presented with $18,000 cars that get 35 MPG.
And $30,000 to start electric cars.
From an economic and functional point of view, no EV can compete with the $10,000 car that gets 60 MPG.
Which is why we are not allowed to have them.
Think about it.
Then why go through the rigmarole of having taxes withheld, filing a return and getting the “credit” back? Just have Uncle cut you a check and be done with it. There are plenty of families who don’t pay anywhere near $7500 in taxes thanks to having a bunch of belly fruit and mortgage deductions, so if they buy an electric car they probably won’t get anything “back” from Uncle.
You guys have to see this – “My Unlucky Electric Car Journey – Only 8 minutes long. A good example of the realities of living with an electric car (It’s owner does a 60 mile trip, then home again)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j941UIWlLPY
And if I may add: In addition to the control, practical, and expense factors, AND the fact that having electric generating facilities everywhere to handle all the demand for juice will be worse for the air quality than having IC cars, another thing is: There will be no such thing as a 10 year-old used car (or probably even a 5 year-old one). With the way these batteries lose capacity and efficiency as they age, and the expense of replacing them, coupled with the fact that there will be other things wrong with the cars by then, between the electric motors, and all the high-tech electronics in ’em, and it’s clear that these electric cars are going to be very expensive disposable vehicles. You buy ’em new; use ’em up (as much as you can over the next several years, as the batteries will deteriorate with age, whether being used or not) and then throw ’em away!
Now it all makes sense, why we are seeing the current crop of IC cars so festooned with non-serviceable parts and complex electronics and gizmos and doo-dads and ridiculously complex drivetrains: They’re just getting people used to the idea of the disposable car which becomes unfeasible to drive once it is out of warranty.
How many times have you heard we could all be driving electric cars in ten years? Who is going to build the infrastructure so every household has the means to charge two electric cars? Oh, I get it. We all get another bigass tax and we pay the best connected companies to the govt. to build all that…..only it can’t be done in ten years and the only way we’d have power to make that extra electricity is to drill, drill, drill and blast mountains for coal. There ain’t no free lunch and this is the perfect example.
In Texas alone we are continually building larger transmission lines and adding wind energy as fast as we can and that’s just an attempt to keep up with the population increase. I’d be proud to return to 6 million but everybody except rural folks are coming to Texas to get away from the cold and to get a job. At least oil companies do create a lot of jobs. Mine….for example.
Exactly, 8SM. The whole idea behind the mass use of electric cars is ridiculous.
A bill of goods (i.e. “clean air” and “cheap operation”, etc.) is being sold to consumers, and as usual, the consumers who bite don’t seem to have the basic minimal intellectual capacity necessary to think past the soundbytes and BS.
In some places they are virtually rationing electricity already, like the town where my sister lives. The city-run utility there implemented a rate structure last year, in which users are charged an outrageous fee (c. $11/KW/hr!!) for useage during the “peak demand day” of each month, so that she is now paying a bill of $180/mo. for electricity for a small 1 bedroom apartment!!!!
Can you just imagine if the demand for electricity grows by leaps and bounds because everyone buys an electric car?!
Hi Nunzio,
The “clean air” thing is particularly annoying. The air is clean. Cars hardly produce any meaningful quantity of harmful emissions and haven’t in years. This is why the EPA continues to ratchet up the standards; we’re already at Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PVEV) levels – and they won’t be placated until it is Zero Emissions (which only electric cars can qualify for).
Why isn’t anyone asking: Show me the smog?
But Eric [in a monotonous cult-inductee voice]….whhhhhat abbbbout sciiiience?
You know, the science which said that we’re entering an ice age…
The science that said that all the Arctic ice would be melted by 2016 (whenever that is… :D)
The science that said we were running out of fossil fuel in the 70’s, and that it would all be gone right about…now…
😀
The science that said eggs, salt and butter were bad for you…
Isn’t it wonderful, living in the “age of science and reason”? Isn’t it?!
Oh, and let’s not forget that we’d all be living in colonies on the Moon by the year 2000…
Y2K!
If we didn’t have this science to solve all of our problems, where would we be today?
Oh…in a sane world full of prosperous skinny people? Meh, who’d want that?
Hi Eric,
My problem is,I give (grudingly) over half of my income to various govt entities now ,I would like a little return on my investment( affordable healthcare for one{not OBC }.
Hi Kevin,
Well, me too. But the government isn’t going to give us “affordable” health care. It is going to force us to buy insurance – a very different thing. Whatever “care” we get will be doled out grudgingly and sparingly and far from affordably. Taxes would have to go up dramatically to provide “free” or “low cost” care… In Europe, they have such “free” and “low cost” health care… but most Europeans also live in small apartments and don’t own much property because they can’t afford it.
I’d rather just pay for what I need, to the extent I am able to. Life is short and I prefer not to spend my days working to pay taxes in order to get “free” and “low cost” care, while living in a small apartment and forget owning multiple motorcycles and an old muscle car.
Believing in government “help” is like believing in the Tooth Fairy.
That’s the practical objection.
The moral objection is obvious. I feel for you. And I feel for me.
We have both been robbed ten ways to Sunday. But as much as that sucks, I cannot endorse robbing others to make me whole or even partially whole.
The nine most terrifying words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA
To start with ,I cannot predict weather with any certainty now ,20 years ago ,I was darn good at it ,something has changed and I am afraid it goes a bit deeper then more co2. Enough about that,I like the idea of electric autos but not the way ,its being implemented (its like our failed attempts at correcting so many things,no time for natural evolution) The very cost of these machines will keep people like me from owning these things ,but the pitiful part is ,I look around and see people dropping over 60K for a 4 dr diesel pickup and thinking nothing of it,so maybe I am wrong about cost being the determining factor
Kids nowadays earn money in scads at service jobs,when I was their age the employers grumbled about paying you minimum wage ,all the while working the crap put of you .These younguns around here buy those aforemetioned vehicles and are even able to buy land ,by the tens of acres .(I thought I was doing good when I was able to buy a 4cyl pickup manual trans without AC) so times have changed apparently.Things can actually improve a bit(If anyone hasnt noticed things are pretty good in America right now,except our social programs lag behind a lot of the civilized world and oft times end up helping the undeserving ,) but let me say this destroying the Applalchian mtns for “clean coal .will solve nothing .
Hi Kevin,
The $60k pick-up thing is possible (temporarily) only because of debt-financing at zero or near zero interest. It can’t last. You can’t have an economy based on negative equity. People spending/consuming more than they are able to produce. My next-door neighbor is part-time employed as a handyman. A Ford dealer financed him a $50k F-150. He had it about a year before it got repo’d.
Now he has a Ram 1500.
On “social programs”: No thanks. While I feel a moral obligation to do what I can to help others, I reject the assertion that other people have a moral claim to take my property at gunpoint (or its threat) on account of their need. Just as I reject the idea that my problems or misfortunes entitle me to take things from others using force or its threat.
Help freely given is a magnificent thing, perhaps the best thing human beings are capable of. But when force or its threat enter the equation, it becomes the worst thing human beings are capable of.
eric, so many things enter into this and you’re correct about financing but the economy is tanking too. Expenses have gone up for everyone breathing, whether you have a job, own a company or simply lie in bed and wait for a welfare check.
What’s so bad is without govt. robbing us, we could take care of people who can’t care for themselves cheaper than taxes……but then that leaves a whole predator class out of work and they’ll do whatever they must to keep THEIR money flowing.
Consider the IRS, one of many with deep pockets you must fill. You can fight them and be dead two ways, one in the short term or the other via long term. No matter which you try, they’ll be there after you’re gone.
If and when they decided your share is too low and raise it till you can’t pay, it still doesn’t matter. If your business goes under, it’s just an adjustment of the book and they can remove that entry after they’ve tried to get everything else you have left and if you are currently making money, continue to tax you for that business they caused to fail. If you go underground, they can wait. Once back in he system, there you are again and maybe they will just take what they can get or maybe they will begin anew on old debt. Either way, you will pay and you can live with it or die with it. Of course you will die with it but there’s the sooner or later aspect of that.
A friend got cross-ways with them back around 1970 because he owned some cattle(a few)and a small amount of land and a vehicle and was caught with two tabs of LSD. Now you might wonder how that could trigger them going after someone. I did, I wondered a great deal, His parents and he did also, just working people trying to get by teaching school and having a small farming business that hadn’t even begun to come close to making money.
So my buddy just drops out for 35 years, no visible job, owns nothing. He finally decides to take a job that ended up paying next to nothing but he filed that return trying to get on the up and up with them. I saw this so I don’t have to guess if it’s correct of just what he said. The IRS sent him a letter telling him if he could only make that much money to leave them alone and DO NOT FILE a statement on that sum of money. It was a spin on the old request of give me all your money, both upheld by force.
This sounds like a very unlikely scenario and had I not watched it play out for the last 45+ years I would have thought someone was leaving some crucial part out of the story. But no, it’s as real as a heart attack. He will be over this situation when he’s room temperature and since he has so little to live for with his wife dying just a month ago, I see his end coming soon and so does he. He’s helped me over those amount of years and longer and I’ve helped him. Now I don’t know how to help except to offer him a place to live and he can eat what we eat and we can go back to sharing as we did in college. BTW, we pay the IRS $650 not to participate in Medicare/Medicaid. I say it’s a tax. They say it’s a fee. Any way a non-bureaucrat looks at it, it’s plain old robbery, the “or else” kind. They don’t sneak in at night and burgle, they show up in the day and take……one thing or the other.
“Help freely given is a magnificent thing, perhaps the best thing human beings are capable of. But when force or its threat enter the equation, it becomes the worst thing human beings are capable of.”
-Eric Peters
Quote of the day!
In this sadly I think you are wrong.
I am as much a petrol head as the next guy.
But have you driven an electric on insane mode, its well, insane.
Even the crazy Swedes are going partially electric for their gazillion HP, 2 million dollar beast,
Its just a better delivery method, and yes it has some battery problems but they will be solved.
What works today is torque all the way up the speedo that you just cant get anywhere else.
Your average Telsa hands down out accelerates anything but a supercar (and even a few of them). Yes its build quality is unremarkable, but god its fun to drive. Different but damn fun, all while carrying 3 kids and more luggage than my Merc 4WD. At highway speeds, plant the foot and the hand of god pushes you up to jail-time speeds in seconds – yee ha!
I agree that there are easier /cheaper places to save CO2 but most of those are upstream, and you know they have the lobby $ to block that move. So the regular Joe gets to pay.
You dont even have to 100% buy the Global Warming story, but given we have no other place to live if we eff up this round rock, we should err on the side of caution.
The level of economc growth and new inventions we will get from going down this path could rival that of the space race or an old style world war ( we cant have a new style WW anymore as we got too good at it, se my note about having only one small round rock).
Going all electric will be awsome! And the sooner real car companies , that know real build quality get into the act the better for all concerned.
Hi Fatman,
I have driven most electric cars made since the 1990s. Including the Tesla. It is very quick. So? That is not an economic or practical consideration… right?
My argument is not with quickness (Tesla) or other attributes but with cost. You repeat the “it will be solved” mantra about batteries and range and cost I have been hearing for decades and which has been promised for a century.
Promises – projections – aren’t going to cut it.
If you’re right about “it will be solved,” why not let the market solve it? Is it not a confession of economic failure that electric cars are only viable with massive government support?
And “err on the side of caution”? You mean, trust what the government and the lampreys who are attached to it tells us about “warming” and accept more control over our lives, higher costs and a diminishment of our material well-being?
When Dear Leaders in DC begin downsizing their lives I will give more credence to what they claim about “warming.”
Does it not cause you to question, even a little bit, the “warming” assertions given the absolutely profligate use of “greenhouse gas” emitting government heavy machinery? If “warming” were such a real and urgent issue and our Dear Leaders honestly concerned about the future of the planet, wouldn’t they scale back the grotesque military that exists for no reason other than to feed the corporate “defense” nexus?
Are you going to claim “we” need multiple (obsolete) carrier battle groups and air wings? Thousands of military aircraft and tanks and heavy trucks? Hundreds of bases around the world?
How much C02 do these emit vs. the fleet of civilian automobiles?
Hey Fatman,
Why is it that no one who loves their electric car will discuss where the electricity comes from to charge the batteries? Does it come from a dammed river (Oh no), does it come from a nuclear plant (gasp), or does it come from burning coal (OMG)?
What about the death zone surrounding the mines where the raw materials for the batteries are mined?
It is such a fairy tale to plug your Tesla into “the magic box” and then drive with all the happiness of a teenager on his maiden voyage. Where is the next “magic box”
Hi Riffraff,
Yup. They also never like discussing the cost… of the car itself.
They will go on at length about not having to buy gas or pay for oil changes. But when I ask them what they paid for the car itself... or ask about the massive subsidies … they try to change the subject or accuse me of being (pick one) a Luddite, getting paid off by Big Oil or some other thing.
The least expensive EV you can buy right now is the Nissan Leaf – which has a starting price of $30k.
Meanwhile, for about $17k you can buy a nicely equipped Corolla or Civic that can go four times as far and which refuels in minutes, not hours.
As the original Clover used to put it: Tell me how this (electric cars) makes any kind of sense…?
Every one of these shills like Fatass start their spiels with the presumption that AGW is a pure T, irrefutable fact. None of the multicolored smoke and funhouse mirrors their spiels employ has a chance without the presumption that AGW is real and that it is caused primarily by auto exhaust.
FFTAFTFH. I don’t try to reason with such a ninny.
It figures that such nonsense would originate in Germany. Will somebody PLEASE put that FUBAR, cucked country out its (and our) misery?!
Germanistan should be next on the drone list.
Been 70 some years since they got a good ass whooping.
Hi Tuanorea,
I share a common ancestry with them (my forbears were Swiss, not far from the border) so I have a natural affinity for many things Teutonic but the German penchant for selbstmord not so much. There is something not-quite-right in their heads. Mine also, I suppose. But at least I am aware of my defects and so have them under control.
Eric,
“I share a common ancestry with them”
Well then guess who gets to write the Concentration Camp Chronicles at your local, friendly, (insert politically correct name here) FEMA relocation center?
I wonder if we’ll be able to make brats out of millet?
The Swiss (my ancestors) are quirky people – and so am I. They were once the hired mercs of the various principalities of Europe but – to their credit – gave that up and decided to MYOB within their own territory. They somehow exorcized the Germanic demon of weltmacht oder kaput that ruined Deutschland.
Today’s Germans seem still afflicted by this. They may not pursue it using tanks and troops… but that lust to control and direct… it’s still there…
And, here.
I think most of them believe this nonsense. Certain places insulate oneself from the realities of the real world. Universities, governments, even some non governmental organizations are prime examples of those places. They don’t have to worry about the payroll or the paycheck.
They have free time that ordinary people only dream about to come up with this garbage. They basically are living off of us and then to top it off bite the hand that feeds them!
It’s no wonder most of the bad ideas of the world originate in those places. Communism, Nazism, and all the rest were largely born and bred on a university campus or a government building. I think one of the reasons why cars are hated by the university crowd. There isn’t a single college on the face of the planet that doesn’t have a parking problem. They don’t even want to solve that properly.
But when you point out that most of the worlds horrors were born in a college or government agency, you are labeled an anti-intellectual. Never mind the most closed minded people I have ever met have the most “education”. Most are increasing ignorant of the world outside campus or the federal center. They are even ignorant of the inner city hell in the big city they all think is so wonderful, much better then that farm or suburb you live in.
Note I am not against education and learning. But the education establishment seems to be incapable of weeding out stupidity. Not only that, but it seems to celebrate stupidity over actual learning. Government agencies are not much different then an university. It’s no wonder so many grads end up at them.
And yes, they think the general public are idiots. And yes they think order is needed, and yes they are the ones to bring that order. And they wonder why people don’t want to do things they tell them to do. It’s for your own good.
It’s also where an interesting lab experiment gets blown up to be the savior of the world (sometime in the next 5-10 years).
After motoring down the road to serfdom for so many years, it would appear that our destination is but a few mile markers ahead.
It’s not going to work. Just like with the guns, there will be huge numbers of people who simply ignore the ‘law’.
I think you are correct, eric – they absolutely know what they are doing. As usual, though, they don’t comprehend the ramifications of their fantasies. You can’t beat people down forever.
A.Yeti,
“You can’t beat people down forever.”
Right, just for all of human history.
At SOME point in the future…
Come on, T. At least one group of people got sick of the shit and pushed back.
Just because we’ve thoroughly fucked up their experiment doesn’t mean it won’t happen again.
A.Yeti,
Or was it simply an improvement to tax farming?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k67_imEHTPE
Great stuff, there, T. I liked this:
The purpose of regulation is to control through rational anxiety rather than dictatorial terror. Prior dictatorships would shoot people, arrest and imprison them arbitrarily – this controlled people’s bodies very effectively, but destroyed their entrepreneurial energies and motivations.
It is far more effective to regulate and license and tax – and this is true for all industries – because potential dissidents then face their own foggy walls of vague anxiety – in which they will not face arrest and imprisonment, but rather lengthy legal complications, which they may eventually win, but which drain much of the joy out of living while they go on, month after month, year after year.
It’s a delicate balance, though, isn’t it? The old adage that ‘what can’t last, won’t’ will eventually come into play. The fools tried to sell us on globalism, but failed to see that the same technologies used to enslave can be used to find and organize like-minded dissidents. And the ruling class knows, deep down, that they need to keep us on edge, lest we turn our productive energies their way.
Bundesrat? I think this is more of a Reichsrat
Silly politicians, you can’t change legislate away the laws of physics. Just like engineers can’t design away governments.
Hi Eric,
I used to think it was just arrogance and ignorance. I no longer believe that’s the problem. I believe they know exactly what they are doing.
eric, you think they know what they’re doing? I believe they know what they’re doing…..in the sense they’ve been told what to do…..and maybe a few of them know why. But as far as them knowing the real reasons of what they’re doing, I have great reservation about that.
No doubt they know the political, do this and this and this is your mission and what you believe…..which comes often from the top of the party, the most powerful politicians but the why is something I believe few of them could actually define for you. They do it, whatever “it” is because they’re told to and given any bullshit reason they’ll all accept they can get the general public to accept. The problem being now the internet and people like myself who haven’t been exposed not only to tv but to only the MSM versions we choose to look over and that’s mostly to see what the enemy is doing.
I take all those e’s that represent the tree huggers, the oil lobby, Dems, Reps, and every other major entity with a dog in the hunt. They all think I’m their biggest supporter and as such, let me in on what they’re about to do. Then I read the list at the guv website of everybody’s vote on every bill and that tells me the actual truth about every politician in DC. The rest of it is just falderal you can sort out a few nuggets of truth after you’ve screened through the massive amount of shit.
The politicians are a servant class mostly. Very few of them understand what they are doing. They do as they are told to do. They do as they are conditioned to do. Who tells them what to do? Who controls their conditioning? Who controls the media? Who sets the agendas? Who benefits?
The grand plan is above the pay grade of mere elected office holders. Some might get it and deliberately choose to serve it but most don’t have a clue. The way things are set up people come up with their own ways to serve the vision totally unaware of what they are actually aiding.
On another note there’s no driving for us in the intended future. Just living in our tiny apartments taking pubic transit to our corporate jobs. If we object or speak out we’ll just be turned off. It’s for our own good.
Yeah, it’s called neo-futilism via technocracy.
It’s well documented.
Yes, they do know what they’re doing. Taking away from us. The Federal Reserve was put in place at first to provide liquidity and stability in the banking system. At least that’s what we were told. Now the entire economy is subject to socialistic central planers who are addicted to power and control.
Climate change “science” says the temperature of the world is going to be on an out of control upward spiral due to heavy increases in CO2. It is all based on computer models. These same sort of computer models can’t predict weather more than 2-3 days out, and that’s only because we have weather satellites and lots of ground stations. But it fits the narrative of the Greens and the Emerald City, so it is treated as gospel. Just like central planning of the economy meant the end of the chaos of the free market (and no more business cycles), central planning will “fix” global warming.
A few weeks ago XKCD, a geek-orentated web comic put out This comic, showing the alleged global average temperature over the existence of the planet. Much of this data was based on tree rings and ice cores. Right up until the time we could do a pretty good job of recording temperature. Then suddenly the temps shoot up. Never mind that at many points in the past the CO2 concentration was much higher than it is today. Never mind that we’re seeing plants grow more and larger leaves. Never mind that if we use tree ring data across the modern era we’re actually seeing better tree growth. And never mind that the sea isn’t rising anywhere near what the computer models have predicted.
I agree the models are wrong,
temperature increases are way worse than predicted.
BTW agree your Fed comments. They only have one tool, and they overused it in 1987, like a newby trying to land a plane, they keep overcorrecting each way (2001, 2008, 2017?) . Eventually it will be a hard landing, harder than if they just held a steady hand.
Because there isn’t any historical data to look at to show unprecedented warming.
Gil,
This is a two-part thing (warming and man-caused warming). Is the climate warming? Is it warming abnormally? It has been warmer (much more so) and cooler (also more so) in the past, before humans even existed. The question arises: Is the current asserted climate change normal/cyclical – or is it caused by human action? If the latter, this must be proved rather than asserted before I will accept the idea that we (you and I and other peons, but never the rich elites) be subject to more control and more diminishment of our material well-being.
The fact is fluctuating temperatures (i.e., “climate”) are normal, including significant variations over time. The fact is “warming” could be caused by non-human factors such as release of methane/CO2 from natural sources, or from solar activity or other mechanisms. Attributing it to human activity is asserted, not proved. And it is asserted by interests whose motives are extremely suspect.
That’s akin to everyone who is born will die eventually so it doesn’t matter if genocide occurs. Or better yet if since the alleged genocide happened outside of living memory it may just be made up to attract sympathy.
Clover,
Genocide is necessarily a human-caused event. Changing climate is not.
The fact is atmospheric gas composition and average temperatures have varied wildly over the eons of time the Earth has existed and long before human beings existed. They will vary in the future as well.
Now, the assertion made by the “climate change” crowd (their choice of words is very interesting) is that human activity is causing an unnatural increase in C02 levels and temperatures. But this is an assertion – based on computer models – and cooked data. I’ve looked into it, as opposed to genuflecting before the warbles of non-scientist politicians who have a clear interest in peddling the idea that there is a “crisis” (which of course they have the solution to).
I reiterate: If this “crisis” were real rather than contrived, why is it that the government itself has not taken “action” – as regards its own “carbon footprint”?
Well, Clover?
Natural climate change is slow and steady whereas there’s clear evidence of fast-paced unnatural warming neatly associated with industrial globalisation of the past 150 years.
Clover,
There have been relatively sudden changes in either direction in the past, for one. And for two, asserting an unnatural warming trend caused by human activity is just that – an assertion.
Gil,
“there’s clear evidence of fast-paced unnatural warming neatly associated with industrial globalisation of the past 150 years”
The claim of rapid, unprecedented change, based largely on the 1998 Mann paper that produced the hockey stick graph, is highly suspect. McIntyre and McKitrick conclusively demonstrated that the methodology used by Mann is invalid.
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick
As for the “neat association” you claim, not so much.
1850 – 1910: -0.1°C Cooling with +15 ppm CO2
1910 – 1940: +0.45°C Warming with +11 ppm CO2
1940 – 1977: -0.1°C Cooling with +23 ppm CO2
1977 – 2001: +0.35°C Warming with +37 ppm CO2
2001 – 2014: -0.04°C Cooling with +27 ppm CO2
http://notrickszone.com/2016/08/04/non-existent-relationship-co2-temperature-correlation-only-15-of-last-165-years/
Notice that the “neat association” exists only for the late century warming phase. The assumptions of climate sensitivity, embedded in the models, do not match the observed data.
Jeremy
Gil, you’re absolutely wrong. Gradualists defend their belief system with ridicule and professional attack. Catastrophists have data.
Gradualists use their social and political domination to maintain their theories and most in-field scientists will not go against it for fear of losing their careers. Which has happened to those who honestly presented the data. These days it’s mostly people from other fields that look into it as a hobby that find and present the evidence.
Things go rather slowly for long periods of time. Often with little or no change over the entire period and then something happens and there are rapid changes.
Listen to Randall Carlson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybqfKeemOUk
Eric & 8,
“I believe they know exactly what they are doing.”
“But as far as them knowing the real reasons of what they’re doing, I have great reservation about that.”
When you’re eating from the endless bowl of shrimp, you tend to ignore the fact the Soylent Green is people. That’s on the menu where the Hoi polloi dine.