Let’s raise a glass to the Unwanted Exotic.
It is very low production – and very high cost – and thus, rarely seen. Like a Bugatti Veyron.
If we were talking Bugattis, there would waiting lists; people wrangling and wheedling to get their hands on one by any means – no matter the cost.
But there is no trouble finding the Unwanted Exotic – and (trust me) you won’t pay full sticker. In fact, some are downright bargains . . . well, depending on your point of view.
There is the Honda Fit electric car. You can drive one (though not very far) for the low, low rate of $259 a month. It is very exotic. Honda has only found homes for about 83 of them so far this year. This is just a bit below the hoped-for target of just over 1,000 annually (2,100 over 24 months). No doubt it has something to do with the fact that you can drive the same vehicle – without the electric motor (and so, much farther) for about $100 less per month. 
GM is having similar problems with its electrified exotic, the Chevy Volt. For some impenetrable reason, it languishes unloved – and unsold.
GM has had to to idle the plant where they’re made. Six-plus months worth of inventory has stacked up – and the end of the calendar year is only about four months away. That means a lot of “new” 2013s are going to end up as last year’s leftovers before they’ve even taken the plastic covers off of the seats. GM keeps cutting the price – most recently by about $5,000 (transferring the balance to its other customers) but still, an insufficient number of rubes are sufficiently enthused.
Quit? Go back to the drawing board? Either option would seem to be a reasonable thing to do. Nah.
Double down!
Make more of them. Damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead!
If the definition of insanity is, indeed, repeating the same action over and over and over – and expecting a different result – then the car industry is palpably insane. No, wait. I am not being fair. The car industry is not insane. It is merely being puppeteered – dancing on strings, the strings controlled by someone else.
It’s the government that’s crazy. Or perhaps, crazy like a fox. If the object of this exercise is not to find a way to reduce the cost of driving but rather to increase it. Check this out:
California – the biggest single market for cars in the U.S. – along with nine others – has set quotas for Unwanted Exotics. Fifteen percent of all cars sold in these states must be of the electrified variety by 2025. This a great deal more than the 80-odd electric Fits Honda has sold so far. And please, no eructations about the Great Success (cue Borat voice) of Tesla. With a base price of $70,000 – $100k-plus for the one the papers like to gabble about that can (in theory) go almost as far on a full charge as a $15,000 economy car with a quarter-full tank of gas – volume production of the Tesla is as likely as volume production of BMW M5s. Teslas are expensive toys – but unlike BMW M5s, the expense is financed by you and I and millions of our fellow tax-cattle.
California, et al have enacted production quotas that will compel each major car company to manufacture tens of thousands of electric cars each – every single year. That is, they’ll be required to make more electric exotics in one year than the sum total of all of them produced to date.
Else punitive fines.
To be passed on, in one form or another, to buyers of cars that pull their own weight like the 2014 Toyota Corolla I just back from test driving in San Diego (review to be posted later this week, but I’ll have a video walk-around up today).
This cost-shifting is necessary because, of course, these is no means of compelling people to buy Unwanted Exotics.
Make the car companies build them, yes.
But then what?
Bailey Woods of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) told Bloomberg News the other day: “They are essentially forcing vehicles to be built and delivered to dealers who are forced to sell them.”
Amend that. Forced to try to sell them.
Unless of course they plan to put guns to people’s heads. And these days, that’s not entirely unlikely. A coiffed and suited thug named Roland Hwang from the National Resources Defense Council – which is not per se the government but might as well be – couches his demands for state-directed violence thusly: “Both a market push and a market pull are needed.”
Just once, I’d like to see a reporter ask a person such as this Hwang character: And what happens if someone decides to push back?
What if my kid’s lemonade is sour and no one wants to buy it. Shall I give my neighbors – shall I give Hwang – a push?
Coiffed and and suited thugs speak softly – but carry a very big stick. Or have others in their service who do the stick-carrying (and using) on their behalf. Thus, the major car companies will do what they must and manufacture vehicles for which there is no real market. They will be made – and then they will sit. Vast fleets of build ’em-or-else electric cars will be cranked out and then it will be up to the dealers to figure out a way to get rid of them that doesn’t involve selling them at a (dirty word, children close your eyes) profit.Â
So long as they produce no emissions (well, that is, at the tailpipe; hush up about the emissions produced by electric utility plants, the toxic effluents associated with manufacturing hundreds of pounds of batteries) and go places (though not distant places) without burning any gas (just a lot of dollars), then bully. Make more! We demand it – even if there’s obviously no real demand for such animals.
This – to a government no-good-nik (or a cartel capitalist) – is enlightened policy.
And it may indeed serve a real purpose. Not ours, of course. Because this level of stupidity usually isn’t. Hwang – and guys like Elon Musk – aren’t dummies. They’re players.
And they’re playing us.
Throw it in the Woods?
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Eric,
Did you see Scotty Kilmer’s video about why it’s a bad idea to buy a Tesla? You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vo9e8dXoIg
I know someone who didn’t fill up her Volt for nearly three months. How is that a problem if a person can afford the car?
It’s a problem for the taxpayers forced to subsidize its manufacture and purchase, Tom.
Yeah, well, I know people who don’t ever fill up their cars. What’s your point? Who ever said that nobody should own a Volt, or a Prius, or whatever?
Man, the quality of shills has really been going downhill lately. Did a new puppetmaster take over the sockpuppet account? “Tom RKBA”….that’s a ridiculous handle for a sockpuppet. Back to school for you, and let the old puppetmaster take over.
“Rolls-Royce PWR2s – why not use them in all vehicles?”
I’m gonna put one in my PT Cruiser, right now. How much is a small one?
The two most important things that separate us from the animals is technical knowledge and material wealth. It seems to me the way we beat them in the long run is to know more and be wealthier.
Simple off-the-shelf nuclear technology, in the hands of private individuals, may be all that’s needed to start a new class of people.
Not a middle class. Not a wealthy class. An independent class. Men not forced to act like animals at all. Men far beyond the clutches of those “Damn Dirty Apes.”
Rolls-Royce PWR2s – why not use them in all vehicles?
http://world-nuclear.org/info/Non-Power-Nuclear-Applications/Transport/Nuclear-Powered-Ships/
http://www.rolls-royce.com/about/technology/nuclear_technology/reactor_types/
http://www.bellona.org/reports/The_Russian_Northern_Fleet_report_chapters/1175895305.68
Why not? In a word, size (since even the reactor is too big for anything much smaller than a ship, let alone all the other parts like shielding, heat exchangers, engines, etc.).
What might just do it, at any rate for tanks and large trucks using an open circuit gas turbine, is an aqueous homogeneous reactor – provided you could beat the failure problems without compromising the small size (you might not care about them in a war vehicle that would be facing a high attrition rate anyway, particularly if the radiation hazards hit someone else’s country). While I do have some thoughts along those lines, it’s still only informed speculation.
Those are valid criticisms, That is ideal tech for the near-future, or to work on in tandem with other ideas. I wonder what could be done right now, especially in a weak former Eastern-bloc nation, couldn’t you build a large nuclear vehicle for a village’s use, one that’s owned by the village.
Also a powerplant the same size as one in a sub, for a village’s use. Voluntary prepper-cooperatives where people want to be together would be ideal incubators of freedom. If they had enough technically savvy people there with access to old nuke technology, I think they could adapt it to civilian land use.
This won’t necessarily be egalitarian. Best thing would be to concentrate the risk. There’s going to be a steep learning curve, maybe even some kind of attrition rate. Kiev, Fukushima may be boogeyman really. How many deaths are there, I think nukes stack up well against other high-risk activities.
Maybe willing elders, who are willing to make a sacrifice for their progeny. Concerns will be radiation leaks, sickness, premature death, accidents that ruin everything and make property useless. Philosophically, why can’t willing civilian soldiers be just as disposable as troops are?
Since a typical nuclear sub has a crew of 80, that is the size I would propose for your neighborhood phyle/prepper-group. I propose taking the sub out of water and making an analagous vehicle/shelter/defense/energy/food system that would simultaneously be your chosen daddy/bodyguard/pantry/powerplant/government. Finally, you at least get to choose your tribal village and what have you.
Just think of the jolly self-sufficient peaceful life embodied in “We all live in a yellow submarine”
You need a physicists in your group to operate the nuclear aspect of the land-sub. You need at least 2 to be monitor everything 24/7. I would abandon the current artificial concept of days and weeks, and let people work/sleep as they are best suited and able. Also, your individual dwellings should be looked at more as “quarters.” You will need to be in various locations of the compound, it might be necessary to visit neighbors to take showers, eat meals, enjoy recreation, enjoy the comfort of furniture, and many other things we currently each have our own personal copy of.
For starters, barebone manpower, you could start your prepper/phyle without a cook, a medical team, the guys who build and man mortars/heavy weapons and the like, remove all but a single “head of household” who knows all that’s going on. Maybe you could get the required people down to 10-20 individuals.
This skeleton clan would leave gaps in matters of security, and might easily fall into debt and dependence, since they might be unable to meet all challenges as they arise due to their lack fo resources and overall knowhow.
You want dense energy that’s cheap to generate. As electric car batteries become more prevalent, and solar and wind improve, they may also offer an opportunity to live off the control freak grid in the near future.
The complex details of all the systems onboard a modern nuclear sub is hard to discern, so decided what minimum skeleton crew size would be need to pilot a land-based version is hard to determine.
The central banks, militaries, Mussolini-ism, Marx-ism, D.C, Brussels, UN, it just doesn’t seem like these guys are going to be easy to bypass and avoid.
One idea might be a form of voluntary-prepperism, where you end up doing a lot of sharing and pooling of resources, but this time by choice through cooperation.
By not exchanging money, but rather expertise, and through a vigilant system of trust assessment and verification, your efforts would mostly benefit you, rather than some abstract council of Ayatollahs who endlessly burden you with more and more untenable Fatwas.
Buying everything from Walmart, working for Megacorp is guaranteed slavery. They will mark everything up 90%. They will take 90% of your earnings. If you get yourself some nuclear power, you are well on your way to some measure of independence and self-determination.
Actually it is worse than you think because those cars if they ever go into production will suck a large about of the stuff needed to make laptop and cell phone batteries out of the market. The good news is that when granny can’t afford hearing aid batteries something might be done. Hearing aid battery stamps.
A good point, Musk.
I think the bottom line here is that if there was a real market for these things, the market would produce them. The fact that they all require “incentives” – that is, government subsidies and so on – is proof positive that insufficient demand exists and that whatever demand does exist is probably artificial and would disappear absent the supports.
“hush up about the emissions produced by electric utility plants, the toxic effluents associated with manufacturing hundreds of pounds of batteries”
But it’s easier to control emissions from thousands of power plants vs. tens of millions of vehicles.
And what toxic effluents are associated with the production of lithium-based traction batteries?
Were you referring to the lead-acid starter batteries used in conventional vehicles?
An EV wouldn’t need one of the above.
Hi Bill,
Point the first: Tailpipe emissions from current IC cars are virtually nil – unless you include C02, which is an inert gas and not even considered an “emission” insofar as EPA/DOT regs.
Point the second: It’s an open question whether the “elsewhere emissions” produced by coal-oil fired utility plants are less (or more) on a per-electric-vehicle basis – than the emissions from the tailpipe of IC cars.
Point the third: Hybrids and EVs have hundreds of pounds of batteries – as opposed to the 50-75 pounds or so for the starter battery in an IC car. The materials used – NmiH vcs. lead acid – are different, but all are toxic and involve lots of land-rape to get and then disposal issues at the end of their service lives.
Last point: EVs are not efficient in most contexts. You pay a tremendous price premium up front relative to a comparable IC car that will take years to work off. Meanwhile, you must live with significant everyday hassles – such as limited range, lengthy recharge times; reduced performance in adverse weather, etc.
I have no objection to trying to make electric cars that make sense. I object to subsidizing those that don’t!
For EVs NiMH batteries are obsolete – everyone’s switching to lithium-based formulations – and there’s nothing toxic about lithium AFAIK, especially compared to smelting lead.
If you’re worried about land rape consider what it takes to get oil sands or shale into a refine-able liquid ‘crude’, to then turn into refined gasoline to burn in a 25% efficient naturally-aspirated production ICE.
We’re pretty much at the end of efficiency improvements to the traditional ICE – even adding turbos as in Ford’s EcoBoost doesn’t do much to improve mpg, though it sure increases complexity, as you’ve noted.
Personal transportation will gradually electrify – the next federal requirement will likely be a ‘start-stop’ belt-alternator-starter hybrid system.
IIRC, Chevy is already putting one of those (that you can’t turn off) into one of its 2014 models.
Lithium is a Family-I metal.
Highly reactive, used to treat mental patients.
Getting it into the environment? BAD mojo. Toxic. Deadly.
You think this is LESS of a problem than burning hydrocarbons?
Worse, it sounds like you’re HAPPY the government is working to destroy free-market enterprise by mandating what a person can and cannot buy.
Please tell me you’re near Boston, so I can stick a shiv in you. I do not ascribe to the NAP, as in the case of a rabid dog: I shoot the dog on sight, whereas NAP would state I can’t morally do so until it attacks me.
This is where I diverge from the majority he; it will likely become more pronounced as I see more rabid dogs walking the streets, and realize the only one who WOULD clean up – is me.
This way, little doggy… The doctor will see you now, he’s just reloaded…
Most interesting element for a shiv is probably super-dense iridium [same metal as tip of a spark plug] (it’s 22650 kg per cubic meter)
Iridium
http://www.periodicvideos.com/videos/077.htm
Lithium
http://www.periodicvideos.com/videos/003.htm
might be the worst choice for using as shiv metal (Lithium weighs 534kg per cubic meter – and doesn’t play well with oxygen or water)
Silver
http://www.periodicvideos.com/videos/047.htm
There’s nothing to fear from any elements, many are excellent long-term storers of your wealth, as long as you have the requisite knowledge and a way to keep them safe from looters.
“But it’s easier to control emissions from thousands of power plants vs. tens of millions of vehicles.”
It’s impossible to control either, and only deluded control freaks see the need to do so.
Why should society be organized around what is best for top down authoritarian control? Furthermore, centralized power plants are going to be only things insiders can own and operate if they aren’t already. Those insiders get special dispensations regarding pollution.
Electric cars are rather energy and material intensive. Lead acid batteries in conventional cars are the products of mature and simple manufacturing that does not have the sort of impact the newer batteries do. Lead acid batteries are also infinitely recyclable.
Part of the problem with electric cars is replacement of the batteries is way too expensive. The other problem is they are too small for American Highways. I would like to survive the idiot that rams me from behind because they are not paying attention on the interstate. Not going to happen in a sardine can.
The only viable electric alternative would have to tap into some natural energy source readily available that costs nothing to reproduce energy for.
There are many sources of electricity out there that the power companies would just as soon have us not know about.
The other problem is our entire industry is designed to fail. Usually within a short time after you pay it off. Electric engines on the other hand have few working parts. Brushes do need to be replaced every so often on an electric engine. Otherwise it is good for a long time. So you have no replacement industry for an electric car. Therefore you have no repeat business for a long time after someone owns a good one.
It is ironic that Tesla was working on free electric energy. That all his works were classified by the American Government after his death. I have no doubt he succeeded. I also have no doubt that the power companies and the government want no one to know how he might have gave us free energy.
The current generation of electric vehicles is nothing more than a farce. The powers that be want us dependent on oil and gasoline. Yet propane could take over that market in the next 5 to 10 years if gasoline gets much higher.
“The other problem is our entire industry is designed to fail. Usually within a short time after you pay it off.”
Not necessarily true. That was the case 30 years ago, but not now. I’m driving a 12 year old Chrysler PT Cruiser and it’s going to easily make it to 20, barring a crash. I see so many 1st generation (01 & 02) PT’s daily that it would be hard to keep count of them all.
Ditto, Ed.
My ’98 Frontier is running (and, amazingly looking) good. Like new, as far as how it drives. I’ve done nothing to baby it; just regular maintenance as per the book. I fully expect to be driving it for at least another 5 years and 50,000 miles.
Yep, when somebody says, “they don’t make ’em like they used to” , I say, “Thank goodness”.
Goes to show that production does NOT drive demand.
Sad, but part about this whole mess, is that the government is waiting for the likes of us to die off – along with our ideas and beliefs. There once was a time if you did not teach your kid how to use a gun you were considered a bad parent. Now, if your kid gets their hands on your gun, your are prosecuted and thrown in jail.
Public schools indoctrinate our children with government wants. Back in the 80’s and earlier, we could go home for lunch; but I don’t know of one school that allows that now. Heaven forbid, the government indoctrination day be split up by letting kids go home for lunch and being influenced by their parents.
Kids are being brought up in a world that teaches reducing your “carbon footprint” with mandatory recycling (some cities are even snooping through your trash and will fine you if you’re not doing it right), riding bicycles (wearing a helmet, of course ) instead of driving a car, or striving to living in a crowded “Utopian” city where everything is “within walking distance.” This is all that a lot of today’s kids know. This is their reality. So sad.
Eric, I believe you wrote a piece about today’s kids not really caring about muscle cars anymore. Cars are a means to get from point A to point B. These electric cars are ridiculous. Especially in Ohio where I live – they just don’t do well in the snow. Could you imagine an electric powered snow plow? LMAO. I can’t help but think the electric car might be another government-made failure.
I agree that our elected (and appointed) politicians should be forced to drive these ridiculous cars. But the chances of that happening are the same as the congress-critters going on Social Security and ObamaCare or Al Gore living in a solar-powered house.
Keep teaching our children about freedom. It’s our only hope.
Right you are, Ms. Daisy –
The degree of control from on high has become absolutely omnipresent and suffocating. They just won’t leave us alone. Anywhere. Anytime.
I sometimes regret not having had kids but the truth is that having them would have shoved even more government – and government busybodies- down my throat. At least I don’t have to worry about dealing with the low-IQ stretch pants-wearing fraus at the local government school, nor with “safety” seats in my car…
Having kids can be one of the most rewarding events in life. No, I’m not going to jump your ass for not wanting to have kids. Actually, it takes a real man to accept the truth and admit the truth.
I was one of the lucky ones. We can do our best to raise our kids but outside influences are strong. I tried to teach my son to think for himself. Just because “authority” says something, that doesn’t make them right. One day my son came home from school and told me how “They (the teacher) was wrong!” They had been learning about one of the World Wars and a particular scenario was given. My son’s comment was “They are wrong! My friends grandfather was THERE and he told us what REALLY happened!” I was so proud!
As I said, I’m one of the lucky ones. As for the safety seats in your car, perhaps that’s part of the plan. First there were seat belts. Then there were car seats for babies, now there are booster seats for kids up to 8 years old or 40 lbs. It won’t be long before they declare cars completely unsafe for children.
Have a great day!
I disagree about having children – but long ago decided I didn’t see a value in torturing another innocent soul, especially one I helped bring into the world.
I helped raise my daughter and girfriend’s daughter; that’s enough failure for one lifetime. (Both have serious issues, and I’m probably responsible for at least part of them.)
The INTENT of many things – like seatbelts and airbags and child seats – was good.
Seat belts were designed by a cop back in the 50s or 60s, IIRC – he noted that the greatest number of fatalities occured when someone had been thrown from the car. So, making the person part of the car was a good idea.
SOMEONE ELSE decided it should be MANDATORY and that they could steal from you at gunpoint…
Child Seats were of a similar nature – designed to ensure the smaller body of the child didn’t get damaged in an accident, inclduing bad injuries resulting from the adult-sized seatbelt.
Now, we have laws saying the seat MUST be purchased, and MUST be installed “Just so”, and MUST be in the BACK SEAT, for SAFETY… Not much of a market? Pass a law… Right?
Airbags were a great idea – make the BAG take an impact so a person doesn’t. As Eric has noted – the auto companies thought it out, did trials, and found it would kill people – and didn’t want to kill the customers, figured it would be bad press at the least. So government MANDATED airbags – and when people died, as Congress was told they would – BLAMED THE AUTOMAKERS. The D.C.-Two step.
And there was FAR less insulation between US and THEM then, and less attempt to outlaw our ability to bring force to bear.
The question is, WHY AREN’T WE SHOOTING YET?
Because we’re too damn civilized for our own good, that’s why – too well indoctrinated into the system.
Introducing a lot of chaos into the mix would be a good thing. Panic the lemmings, drive them over a cliff, and let the world begin again….
Record the history in books. Record without bias – check for objectivity. This happened, This happened, This happened. Possible causes were X; possible results were Y.
But the lemmings? Run them through a meat grinder, they’re useless in history anyway. Operation Meatshield, indeed.
Hi Jean,
I got to thinking about the Lemming Issue while I was dealing with the TSA rigmarole last week. I was the sole person (at multiple airports) who:
* Refused to go through the scanner.
* Refused to engage the TSA creeps in small talk or even treat them with the civility one might extend to a homeless panhandler.
Everyone else? Obligingly walked through the scanner. Smiled at the TSA creeps – engaged them in friendly banter.
Baaaaaa! Baaaaaa!
Point being: What good is one person’s resorting to physical resistance? Not only would you lose – the got-damned sheeple all around you would cheer on the beat-down you’d receive.
Stop holding up the line….
Eric,
You are correct about dealing with the Sheeple.
It is part of the Plan.
Only option is to disrupt the plan, in meaningful ways, at the top levels. And then let the stuff roll downhill.
We cannot do that by hassling the Total Shithead Agents. They’re lemmings and sheep themselves! They CANNOT think of better. Making them angry? Pointless.
But, find out how to EMP an airport?
Mortar a fuel depot?
Snipe a military base (whether you HIT anything or not is your choice)?
LOTS of options. Drive through Beverly Hills, drop an improvised EMP, have it go off at night – no injuries, just pops all the electronics…. THAT will leave a mark. Ferarris reduced to paperweights, computers and cell phones “nuked”, all the financial records lost….
You get the idea – and i’m just looking into stupid one-shot stuff.
Now, it’ll immediately result in more security, more cameras, more (whatever totalitarian means of control they think will work), but – people will realize they truly ARE at the mercy of “the mob.”
That’s the purpose of a terrorist, as I was reading elsewhere: Doesn’t need to KILL a lot of people, just instill a sense of unease, a fear that NO ONE is immune.
The sheep will do the rest themselves, and they’ll lick the wolf’s anus, and hope he eats them LAST…
There’s no way to shake that concept, it’s a question of how big the herd is. But make it clear that the wolf will eat EVERYTHING, EVERYONE, they might at least decide to GTFO – and that works fairly well, too, in my estimation. Galt’s gulch is recruiting – if the sheep are denied entry, there’s still hope.
Dear Jean,
Classic “If it’s good make it mandatory, if it’s bad make it illegal” mentality.
Of course for those who feel compelled to make it either mandatory or illegal, it’s never really about whether it’s good or bad.
It’s really about the relentless sociopathic compulsion to exercise control over other people.
The sociopaths who are shrewd enough to choose collectively sanctioned criminal behavior (“public service”) over collectively unsanctioned criminal behavior (serial rape, serial murder), can then exercise that control they so desperately crave, and literally get away with murder. Mass murder.
I’m with you, Miss Daisy. Having children is, IMO, one of the main points of life. As Franz Kafka said:
“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”
Of course there is. Off the top of my head, here’s one: bundle a raffle of these vehicles with every conventional car bought, with an obligation for “winners” to take delivery or face storage charges, and with notional title – and so, how things are on the books – being transferred regardless. That sticks buyers with white elephants. (I got the idea from a biopic of how P.T.Barnum unloaded a lot of green bottles he somehow got lumbered with, early in his career.)
Phineas T Barnum – taxfeeding scumbag:
Barnum enjoyed what he publicly dubbed “profitable philanthropy.” In Barnum’s own words: “I have no desire to be considered much of a philanthropist…if by improving and beautifying our city Bridgeport, Connecticut, and adding to the pleasure and prosperity of my neighbors, I can do so at a profit, the incentive to ‘good works’ will be twice as strong as if it were otherwise.” In line with this philosophy was Barnum’s pursuit of major American museums and spectacles.
Barnum served two terms in the Connecticut legislature in 1865 as a Republican for Fairfield. With the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution over slavery and African-American suffrage, Barnum spoke before the legislature and said, “A human soul, ‘that God has created and Christ died for,’ is not to be trifled with. It may tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab or a Hottentot – it is still an immortal spirit.” As mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut he worked to improve the water supply, bring gas lighting to streets, and to enforce liquor and prostitution laws. Barnum was instrumental in starting Bridgeport Hospital, founded in 1878, and was its first president.
Perhaps the Goobermint should call another emergency meeting of the car execs and REQUIRE them to drive their Electric Cars to D.C. and be there within 24 hours.
None of them will make it as they will all be stranded 100 miles from the respective offices. The obvious absurdity would be lost on them – hard to see the light when their heads are buried so far up their collective Arses!
Dear GW,
Good idea. But don’t leave out those guiltiest of all, the sociopaths in the White House, Congress, and all those other white marble buildings in DC.
They should all have their conventional gasoline burning vehicles confiscated and be required to drive electric vehicles.
They would wind up stranded out on the highways, unable to get to their offices inside the Beltway, minimizing the harm they can do.
Force them to ride the subway – the problem will quickly deal with itself.
“Hey, John – Remember me? I’m the guy who wanted to put up a fence to keep the addicts out of my house, and you said no. Remember?
Well, a junkie killed my wife last year – guess what I’m gonna do next?”
There’ll be at least one citizen for every bureaucrat, we should see an improvement (due to accountability) in VERY short order.
And no worries about running out of bureaucrats, they grow like weeds…
YES. A sight to behold!
Too true, GW.
Tsk, tsk, tsk…
Luddites all.
Electric is the future, just not our future. WE don’t have a future, at least not one you all may imagine. It will be up to some future generation to make the switch to electric everything, delayed until the power of the sun is harnessed. For us though, we’ve far more immediate dangers to face.
Dear Mark,
Speaking only for myself, although I love internal combustion engined automobiles, I would be perfectly willing to transition to other alternatives IF natural market forces dictated such a change.
The problem is that electric cars, hybrids, solar energy, wind power, and all sorts of “Environmentally Correct” alternatives are arbitrary dictates handed down by Green on the outside Red on the inside Commissars.
Even if they are adopted, under duress, they usually turn out to be unsustainable (how’s that for irony?) boondoggles that squander more raw materials and energy than the technology they presumed to replace.
Bevin, as you know, Mises’ book “Socialism” (1922) proved irrefutably that without markets and market-established prices, allocation of resources is inevitably disastrous.
Taken to extremes, it leads to widespread famine and pandemic disease that can wipe out entire societies.
We are alive to witness the full realization of politically-allocated resources…ironically not in the USSR but in the apogee of freedom’s ILLUSION, the USA. Totalitarianism requires a good cover story.
O-bomb-us has codified into law (presidential edict, that is) complete federal control over all food production. Sooner or later, the misallocation of resources to electric car boondoggles will pale into complete insignificance.
Bread basket countries aren’t exporting much grain. Gold-loving rational economies are under relentless attack.
U.S. Corn Exports
http://harvestpublicmedia.org/sites/default/files/uscornexports.jpg
India is in the midst of its “New Deal” Gold imports are restricted, any actually allowed gold in includes an 8% tariff. Anyone caught transporting their gold can expect it to be confiscated, and forced to try and get it returned.
You will use our rag-paper serfs.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/27/india-seizure-smuggled-gold-soars/
Executive Order 6102 was an executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt “forbidding the Hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States”.
The order criminalized the possession of monetary gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation under penalty of $10,000 and/or up to ten years imprisonment.
All privately held gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates were handed over to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce gold certificates.
Certificates which were immediately relieved of their responsibility to deliver gold on demand.
The sheeple were robbed of the $35 market price of gold, the gold owners were stuck with fiat paper, this paper lost 50% of its value in a week, and then continued to steeply decline from there.
Most Americans, except the ultra-wealthy connected ones who were warned in advance, saw their life saving cut in half and then further reduced during all the banking holidays, and transaction prohibitions on private payments.
Unless both parties obtained a blue eagle stamp from the Code of Fair Competition proving their government approval of doing business the American way. The slogan was – “NRA Member – We Do Our Part” it was with this spangled starred and striped cartel organization that private business was crowded out and then crushed by New Deal state industrialists and cronies.
Executive Order 6102
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
National Recovery Act – Blue Eagle –
“When every American housewife understands that the Blue Eagle on everything that she permits into her home is a symbol of its restoration to security, may God have mercy on the man or group of men who attempt to trifle with this bird.”
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1933, Bert Bell formed a new National Football League franchise to replace the defunct Frankford Yellow Jackets, he named this team the Eagles to show his gratitude for the NRA and for all of his new ill-gotten wealth.
– Heil fuuuuhttttballlll!
O-bomb-us! –That’s a good one!!! LOL!
Dear DC,
“Taken to extremes, it leads to widespread famine and pandemic disease that can wipe out entire societies. ”
Yup. I know that only too well.
When mainland China fell to the Marxists, hardline purist Communist policies between 1958 and 1961 led to famine that killed 30 million Chinese.
Shrub/Obomber and their predecessors have been practicing “Communism Lite.” That just means the consequences will be delayed longer.
Did somebody say, ‘Yellow Jackets’?
.22
I would love to own a Tesla Model S. I could charge it off my PV system which I installed several years ago and am very happy with.
Solar power is really amazing and keeps getting cheaper every year.
Hi Greg. I like the *idea* of an all electric car, but what I resent is being *taxed* to subsidize a business like Tesla that can’t turn a profit on its own.
Robert
I’d love for you to own one (if you wish), too.
Provided I’m not compelled to “help” finance the building of it or its purchase.
What you’re really saying is you want them to spend their tax money on something you want.
I’m guessing you don’t mind spending other peoples tax money on military expenditures. So right now we’ve got 11 carrier groups. They probably cost in the $20 – $30 billion range each to build. The cost to operate them is probably somewhere on the order of $20 billion a year. In the meantime we are in the process of replacing 10 of the carriers at a cost of $9 billion each. We received the first one this year. The development program for the new carriers was another $4 billion. The single most important purpose for all the military expenditure is to maintain a fairly stable international oil market for the US and its allies, so that fuel prices remain stable.
So maybe some of the Tesla buyers are saying to themselves … I can either spend my tax money on something I want – a Tesla. Or I can spend my tax money on something Eric wants, military support of the oil market. And they’re choosing to spend their tax money on something they want, not on something you want.
What if we could reduce our dependence to where we only needed 6 carrier groups instead of 11? What would that do to the tax equation?
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone got to choose. Then probably most of the left wingers would choose to spend their tax money on EVs. And most of the right wingers would choose to spend their tax money on more carriers and fighter planes and missiles.
Hi AR,
You’re new here, so I won’t take offense at your suggestion that I “support the troops” – much less military expenditures.
That one always takes my breath away!
Read on… you’ll find I hate the blue and red equally.
This is an anarcho-Libertarian joint!
Dear “A Reader”
Boy, are you barking up the wrong tree.
Both unprincipled Democrats and unprincipled Republicans (are there any other kind?) are persona non grata at this website.
This is a website for genuine, 100% champions of the NAP. This is a website for free market anarchists.
Hi Mark,
It’s hardly Ludditism to object to an inferior (and more expensive) technology that’s force-fed to the market via subsidies.
I say this as someone who has driven them all – going back to the ’90s-era GM Impact.
They’re all functionally compromised in significant ways. They’re all cost-uncompetitive with conventional cars.
I’d have no issue with – would cheer – an electric car that was more efficient/economical to own than an otherwise comparable gas-burner.
None such exist, however.
Hang is a commie thug, most likely grew up under mao z dung.
We must request the government to buy these electric cars fro their beloved comrades in the office who go into the field. Perhaps their swat teams could use such “superb” cars. And why are none of the enviro commies buying these cars for their personal use? That speaks volumes about the utility of exotics.
Perhaps the car companies could develop balls and not sell into the calif market. Time manufacturers start telling government to get lost and be prepared to back this up with words. Soon, when the enviros have to do with out cars, there will be hell to pay.
Joe,
You are a got-damn genius!
I concur!
It is urgent that all law enforcement be equipped with high-performance, efficient and low-emissions electric cars. Think of the environment! Our Children’s Future!
Oh, hail yayuh. They should also be issued those safe ‘smart guns’ with the control chips. Officer safety demands full body armor, lexan bubble helmets, and chain link fences around their positions at all times.
Contact with mundanes must be completely cut off to keep our heroes safe. If it saves one heroe’s life, etc…….
Now that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day! And if we can persuade them to go totally solar, we’d only have watch our backs on sunny days!
Not to mention we could make solar- and electric- powered tanks and aircraft and be more efficient there, too… 😛
Actually, electric military vehicles would make sense – if they got their primary electricity from “nuclear batteries” the way some satellites do, even if they still needed secondary storage batteries or an internal combustion hybrid mode for sprint power. It would reduce the logistical problems of providing fuel.
Dear PM,
It’s what I’ve been saying as well.
The problem with electric cars isn’t the chassis or the electric motors.
The problem with electric cars is the batteries as a source of electrical energy. If an alternative means of generating or storing electrical energy can be found, that can then be fed to the electric motors, electric vehicles could be a terrific solution.
Having so few moving parts has got to be a good thing from an engineering perspective.
Ironically, gubmint coercion is very likely standing in the way of the search for better electric car solutions.
Bevin, I concur, it’s the batteries (or more generically, energy storage).
The problem is, if you want to push a car as far as 17 gal of gasoline (in my Camry Hybrid) then you have to store pretty much that much energy.
17 gal of gasoline can be turned into a crappy bomb…crappy because gas doesn’t like to give up all its energy at once. An electrical capacitor, on the other hand, would be trivially simple to get to dump its energy (or so I’d guess).
A “battery” that can drive a car like gasoline will likely always be a potential bomb, unintentional or otherwise. No one seems to notice this little problem.
dc.sunsets, you can actually make a very effective F.A.E. (fuel air explosive) using petrol, just by putting a thunderflash in a jerry can with a few inches of petrol. The comparatively slow explosion disperses it, and then the lingering hot particles ignite it after the vapour has combined with enough air. It’s not as good as a proper design, of course, but it works quite well even so. Or so I have been told.
No, no, no, you guys have this all wrong.
The by Watermelons don’t want you in an electric car.
They don’t want you in ANY car at all!
They want you walking, or *maybe* riding a bike. They want to get you out of your dependency on mechanized transport. The only mechanized transport they are willing to abide is public transportation. Likely because they know they could easily force all riders to wear an RFID chip so they can know where everyone is and where they are going at all times.
You’re almost on the right track with the idea of requiring all government agencies to buy electric. But you make a strategic error. You need to think about what the end game is for these people: Getting all individuals out of their cars, period.
Our answer should be:
OK. The rest of us will start getting out of our cars when every government official — including the president and congressmen — walks or bikes to work — and walks or bikes for all trips required while *at* work. Oh, and, when a citizen needs service, the government worker must not require them to come to the bureaucrat’s office. Rather, the bureaucrat must go to the client!
Think about it. We could get cops back on the streets, on foot — where they can walk their beat and actually meet the people they serve *before* beating them up. We could get welfare workers walking to their clients’ houses, so they can see the big-screen TV the bennie card just bought. Politicians who want your vote will just have to walk to the environmental forum where they’re going to speak before the watermelons who are trying to influence policy. Zoning officials will have to walk to that remote property sixty miles away, in order to inspect compliance with the zoning ordinance as it relates to the 9×12 shed the owner just finished building. Tax collectors will have to walk to the taxpayer’s home to collect the tax.
Back in 2008, I wrote an article suggesting all the government workers in Richmond VA should be required to leave their vehicles at home and bike, walk, or use the bus to get to work. Unfortunately, I now see the error of my ways, and I see that there is no reason to stop at their commutes to their government building. No, these folks should be walking *all day*.
http://freevirginia.blogspot.com/2008/04/go-green-why-should-richmond-subsidize.html
The Haaaaahhhhhvaaaaahhhhdd-misededucated covetous watermelons who wish to run everyone else’s life should be the early adopters of their own wonderful agenda. They should be the first to live under it. If they want us to change, they should be the change they want to see.
Eh, I’m still in favor of involuntary euthanasia of anyone who’d go into government work. (Not that it would help much, they’d just PRETEND it was a sacrifice and the game would continue.)
But at least exposing the nature of things would help one generation… and the depopulation might wake up Amerikans to the horror that is Government regulation. ya know, ya can’t miss what you never had – and we have a generation growing up who don’t know what freedom is.
“Time manufacturers start telling government to get lost ”
I have often wondered why they don’t. After all, it’s gov’t regulkations that cut into their profits so much. The only conclusion I can come to is that corporations want things as they are. The regulations that hamper them, also wipe out smaller companies and prevent upstarts from horning in on what they see as their markets.
The greenie weenies seem to be so wrapped up in their own self-righteousness that they don’t see their own hypocrisy. In Richmond, they prattle on about using buses, which have limo tinted windows so that nobody notices that they’re nearly empty as they lumber around, spewing black smoke from underworked diesels.
The loudest supporters of buses never ride one. They live in the ‘burbs and commute in their Priuses, or live within walking distance of their offices.
All large firms (like car companies) are creatures of crony capitalism. They are run by True Believers in the Godhood of Government, and these folks are more likely to drink battery acid than to repudiate their faith in the state by telling Commiefornia to take a long walk into the Pacific.
The CEO of Johnson & Johnson wouldn’t, in his wildest dreams, imagine telling the FDA’s goons to go (—–) themselves and the horses they rode in on.
All of these captains will go down with their ships; they see it as Poseidon’s Will.
There was a time when the car companies resisted, both as corporate policy and within the organization. A good example that Pontiac nuts will already know about is the SD engine program in the early ’70s. The engineers designed what amounted to a completely new engine (the SD-455) but smuggled it under the wire as just another 455. They got caught, and had to change the camshaft to a less aggressive grind (hence the downrating of the initial 310 hp engine to 290 hp). They also tried to make the shaker scoop functional but got stymied by federal drive-by noise regulations.
Now, they all do their utmost not merely to comply – but to anticipate future regulations and meet them before they become formal requirements.
They’ve come to realize it’s easier – and there’s money in it, too.
For instance, they can charge people for six rather than four air bags. Soon, it’ll be eight rather than six. And so on.
Unwanted Exotic is a good term for these vehicles. I see about the same number of Teslas and Volts as I do Ferraris around town in Aspen.
Why do you think Ayn Rand invented Galt’s Gulch as the haven? She knew it would eventually get to this irrational level of government meddling.
By the way, don’t come to Stalag California. While the commissars are reducing the ability to generate power for the frayed electric grid they are shoving the electric car at us like a prep H lozenge.
Just saw that Tesla stock is up 4 percent. Elon Musk … Wall Street’s favorite little fascist.
Tesla’s stock is “up?” What better evidence could we ask for to show how irrational the market is?
Dear lib,
Indeed!
Worse, the fact that the S&P500 is way up since 2009 is even more irrational.
Irrational defined in terms of long term fundamentals of course.
If one is trading short term, playing musical chairs on the deck of the Titanic, that is a different matter.
When you’re the darling of Silicon Valley and you’ve got the government tossing bags of money your way, it’s easy to make Wall Street believe you’re a great success. But I take comfort in knowing that Tesla eventually will go the way of ENRON and Bernie Madoff. Ponzi schemes always end badly.
Tesla paid off its government loans 10 years early.
Yes, but every car they build is heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars, directly as well as indirectly.
Even so, the cost is still exorbitant. Base price is $70,000.
Even if that were halved, we’d still be talking a price tag equivalent to a BMW 3 sedan.
In which case, it makes no sense that I can see.
Isn’t the object to lower the cost of driving?
Put another way: If you can afford to spend $70,000 on a car – plus the cost to insure a $70k car – then it’s pretty got-damned obvious that you do not need to worry about the cost of gas.
Right?
Thus, the Tesla – like a BMW 5 – is an indulgence. But the difference is you’re compelling others to subsidize your indulgence when you buy the Tesla.
For me, Greg, the problem is that Tesla got government loans in the first place. Elon Musk is one of the richest guys in the world, but he needs the government to loan him money to start a car company? If Tesla was the “great business idea” the MSM claims it is, I’m sure a smart guy like Musk wouldn’t have *wanted* anybody else’s money — he’d want all the profits for himself. The fact that he wanted the government to underwrite this venture shows me that he knows deep down that it’s not profitable as a business. It is, however, profitable for Elon Musk — financially, and as an ego booster.
Pump and dump stock manipulation by an arch manipulater: Musk!
The answer to government failure is more government.
This is how people have been conditioned to think. It is how a statist thinks. The only reason government fails is because it didn’t have enough power. Politically those in office and those who support their teams cannot admit error. So the plan/idea/whatever was never misguided and in error to begin with there was always something wrong with the execution of it. The result is that any failed scheme is to be followed up by doubling down on it.
Basically the only way out is total collapse and that might not even do it.