My teeth hurt.
Over the past week, I’ve been assaulted by one “news” story after the next about the latest fruit of government motors. Not GM. Tesla. The Model D. It is very slick! And very quick! It has all-wheel-drive! Not one but two electric motors (which isn’t new, by the way). Orgiastic comparisons with Porsche 911s and other exotic high-performance cars.
No mention, of course, that the government doesn’t pay people to buy 911s. Nor is Porsche a rent-seeking cartel whose existence depends on government support.
I was asked recently during a radio interview (here) why I do not like the Tesla. But that is not the right question, much less a fair question.
I haven’t got any particular like – or dislike – for the Tesla as such. If Elon Musk – or anyone else wants to build a car (powered by whatever, be it electricity or air or unicorn farts) and offer it for sale, they ought to be free to do so. I certainly have no objection to that.
What I do object to is being forced to “help” anyone else manufacture – or purchase – a car. I especially object to being forced to “help” the very affluent buy this toy.
The least expensive Tesla is a $60k car. Anyone who can afford to spend $60k on a car is someone who does not need my “help” to buy it. I’ve never spent more than $10,000 on a car myself – and all of it was my money. The guy who buys a Tesla gets a $7,500 federal tax kickback – more than what I paid for one of my trucks.
Why is it that – so far as I have been able to determine – no one in the mainstream media ever bothers to ask Elon Musk: If your car is so uber-luscious, how come it’s necessary to dangle large amounts of other people’s money in front of prospective buyers? Porsche doesn’t need to do this. Indeed, Porsche typically sells every car at full mark-up. Good luck trying to haggle down the price of a GT3.
Why is this?
I’ll tell you why. Rather, I’ll tell you what the supine (and engineering-ignorant) media will not tell you:
While the Tesla is indeed slick, its quickness is extremely short-lived if used. It has the capability to reach 60 MPH in just over 3 seconds. But it does not have the capability to do so more than a handful of times before you run the battery pack to “empty” – at which point you had better be within close proximity of an electric hook-up and have at least 30-45 minutes to kill while the car recharges itself. That’s assuming the hook-up is one of Tesla’s “super” charging stations. On ordinary household current, the recharge time is several hours.
In order for the Tesla to deliver on its touted maximum rage (an alleged 275 miles) it must be driven like a Corolla – not a 911. Accelerate pedal to the metal more than a handful of times or run it up to 80 and hold it there – and watch the battery charge indicator drop more rapidly than the gas needle in a ’70 Hemi ‘Cuda with 3.90 gears.
And the ‘Cuda at least refuels in minutes rather than hours.
Which rather defeats the point, does it not?
What, after all, is the point of of paying $60k-plus for a car with excellent performance which you can realistically use only every now and again? Imagine if Porsche 911s came with a 1 gallon fuel tank – which you had to refill using a syringe. The car would accelerate furiously…. until you burned up the gallon of fuel. Which would happen very quickly. Now, you’d get to spend the next 30-45 minutes drawing gasoline into a syringe and squeezing it little by little into your car’s one gallon tank. If you needed to drive any significant distance, you’d have to drive as if you had an egg under the accelerator pedal. Keep it around 55-60. Do not pass that Clover up ahead. Indeed, you’d better drive like a Clover.
How many people would buy such a car? Would pay $60k-plus for such a car?
Bingo.
This is why billionaire Musk needs your money to make his “business” work. His cars are unsalable on their merits. So he resorts to government force. And that’s why I dislike Elon Musk – and disparage the Tesla.
Note, by the way, that Apple computer never resorted to force. I mention Apple because of the oft-repeated Elon Muskian bullshit that “early adopters” of Apple’s initially expensive gadgets up-ended the usual model of trying to sell basic, inexpensive stuff to a large audience and then building the fancy/expensive stuff. No one that I am aware of ever got a government kickback to induce them to buy a Mac or an iPhone or tablet. And so, I am not annoyed when I see a young hipster playing with his $600 iPhone. I figure he either bought it with his own money or his parents’s money.
But he did not buy it with my money.
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Dear Randy,
Thanks for those 44 sentences,
averaging 23 words per sentence,
averaging 5 characters per word,
having Reading Ease of 65 which is 9th Grade Level,
having a difficult Fog Scale Level of 13% Difficult Words,
and having a Flesch-Kincaid of 10th Grade Level.
The Great Depression IMO was caused by Prohibition and the throttling of the free market to inforce this statist mandate. We are seeing similar signs this time for similar reasons.
I reject your unsubstantiated claim of 97% of scientists being in agreement. I would add that it only matters which scientists are correct, reality does not spring forth from any kind of popularity contest.
When I hear you say “our oil” I know we are in complete opposition. The oil belongs to whomever extracts it, the results of individual human effort is never something that belongs to everyone else.
I don’t share you identity with heavily armed captors shaping our future for the better. Instead I will work to escape or mitigate the effects of my captivity.
When you say that violent captors calling themselves “government” accomplish great things, I can no longer continue reading this. You go ahead and enjoy your captivity, I cannot join you in this. To my ears, it sounds like the ravings of an absolute raving and drooling psychopath.
Someone could have also floated a theory of peak wheat, peak telegraph coverage, or peak sugar decades ago. Just as in the case of oil, they would have been ludicrously wrong.
3 billion people now have instantaneous access to telegraph technology at their fingertips. There was no way of predicting the explosion of new communication technology all those years ago.
No plotting of acres of sugar cane would have foreseen the rise of corn syrup and other high tech sweeteners.
Futurology is a pseudoscience. No matter how thick you paint a scientific veneer over things, the future remains unknown, unpredictable, and incalculable.
It is gross stupidity to give any credence to political assertions dressed up as science for political gain and power. There is no benefit to entertaining any of this hack pseudoscience whatsoever.
Well, we don’t seem to have reached Peak Cell Phone Coverage yet.
Like Seinfeld said, “Who are these people.”
Saying Peak Oil and sustainabitlity green tech flim flammers are part of the auto industry, makes as much sense as saying Charles Manson was a great musician and an important poet.
Once someone establishes themselves as taker by force. As someone willing to jam their whatzit into your hoo haw to accomplish their objectives, it’s game over time.
Back away slowly, or turn around and run. Get away from these psychopaths and their ravings by any means necessary. It happens so fast. One minute, you think your friend is a stand up guy. The next minute he’s a pod person, regurgitating platitudes and giving into the alien madness.
Why do you want to be the bottom in their feminine imperative. Why willingly submit and help negotiate the penetration and domination of the proton men in charge over the masses of neutered neutron men with no charge.
They’re unstable isotope atom smashers that will take you to a place of cascading decay and complete implosion of any means to regulate yourself and your life.
Their schizophrenic dogma is unworkable, they’ve never built anything in their lives, why give them the time of day
It seems like this blog is in pretty good shape. You can always tell because the proprietor of a successful endeavor will always be talking about how great the people involved are. If you hear too much talking about anything other than how great people involved are, then you can be fairly certain things are in pretty bad shape.
The way to manage a proprietorship successfully is to manage it in such a way that you can be proud of the people with whom you are working. You have to find a way to interact with the people with whom you are working in a way that makes you proud of them.
Living and working is really pretty simple. Living happens right now; it doesn’t happen back then, and it doesn’t happen out there. Living is not the story of your life. Living is the process of experiencing right now.
In life you wind up with one of two things – the results or the reason why you don’t have the results. Results don’t have to be explained. They just are.
Your power is a function of velocity, that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality. Most of us dis-empower ourselves by finding a way to slow, impede, or make more complex than necessary the process of translating intention into reality.
In my visits here, i’ve become sure we can discover another possibility: living in a way, now, moment to moment, that makes a difference to each others lives. We can discover that as human beings we can live in a possibility instead of in what we have inherited.
That instead of just being a typical human being because we were born that way, we can declare the possibility of being more for our fellow human beings right now. This is the nature of our work, the way of transformation: the possibility of bringing forth a breakthrough in what is possibile for the average human.
Our truth will not be found later in some upcoming different set of circumstances. Our potential truth is always and only to be found in the circumstances we’ve got right now.
Being people of power means being decisive in the moment. Since now is the only time you have in reality and because now will never seem to be the right time to act, I say we may as well take action right now, e=Even though “it isn’t the right time.”
Our advantage is knowing that given the “right time” will never come, acting now is, at the least, powerful (even if you don’t get to be right). Statists and mainstream people will always wait for the decisive moment, whereas people of incremental gathering power are decisive in the moment at hand.
The reason for this is to carpe diem and to experience the joy of love, and the ability to love and the ability to experience being loved. Not to second-handedly discuss the concept or story of joy in some distant future when we’re given permission. But rather, it’s about siezing the experience of happiness, and the ability to be happy and sharing happiness in this moment, not the concept, not the story, not the symbols of it.
We have to train and prep to find out who we are, not what we do, or what we have, or what we do not do or do not have. We have to know ourself as the self, not merely the story or symbols of self.
The leadership of this site and our individual transformation is about Integrity. It is not about good or bad, or right or wrong, or what should or should not be.
One distinguishes integrity as a phenomenon of the objective state or condition of an object, system, person, group, or organizational entity, and defines integrity as: a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, and in perfect condition.
This integrity, our shared condition of being whole and complete, continues to be a necessary condition for workability, and that the resultant level of workability determines the available opportunity for performance and realized freedom and independence.
We’ve accepted Eric as an individual in whom we distinguish integrity as we would like to see in our daily lives. We have witnessed his pledging of his word as being whole and complete for our assembled purpose, Building upon this context, we define integrity for each of us an individuals, subgroups, or allied phyles, of us each honoring our word not to hinder or interfere with each other; or of our separate peaceful goals. We believe this is the way forward and the path to lasting happiness for us all.
This possibility of happiness is not a disease. It does not creep up on you slowly. It is something that happens in an instant. On your first, tenth, or maybe hundreth visit, it will occur. The blunt truth of the matter is that you can alter your state to a state of happiness, by simply choosing to be willing to have it be the way it already is. Just demand to be happy and sovereign, and it is done.
In other words, if you visited this site today while troubled, or if you’ve been sitting there troubled, or if you’re troubled in some other way, in the next instant you can become totally untroubled, and this can flow naturally from a simple willingness. Just hold it in your mind resolutely. Yor freedom, though limited, is today sufficient as a start.
Happiness will then flow from this very simple willingness. It is a willingness to look at what is as what is. It’s the willingness for it to be the way it is. It may take you some days, or some weeks, or even years to move through all of the circumstances of life and move from a resistance to them; from an unwillingness for them to be the way they are, to a willingness for them to be the way they are.
But you can do all that. You can spend your years moving through all of it happily. You don’t need to do it unhappily. Happiness isn’t at the end of some confidence man’s rainbow. Happiness is at the beginning of your own personal rainbow. It is the ongoing act of following your own rainbow to your own happiness, not getting to the end of some one else’s vision of it.
All it takes is to take a stand in this regard and accept that you are cause in this matter. This is in contrast with it being your fault, or with it being that you failed, or that you are to blame, or even that you did it or have permanently ruined it.
Accepting that you are the cause of everything in your life is a place to stand from which to view and deal with life – a place that exists solely as a matter of your choice. The stand that one is cause in the matter is a declaration, not an assertion of fact. It simply says, you can count on me and I can count on you to look at and deal with life from the perspective of my being cause in the matter.
When you have taken the stand and declared that you are first cause in the matter of your life, you give up the right to assign cause to circumstance, or to others. You give up the right to be a victim. You give up the right to assign cause to the waxing and waning of your state of mind – all of which, while undoubtedly soothing, leave you helpless and ineffective.
Your taking of this stand does not prevent you from holding others responsible.
You will begin to consider that all accomplishment is constituted by a series of resolved breakdowns. You are a closed system, fully capable of getting whatever derails back on track.
Leaders do not act from a plan, but plan from their action. The planning is really an ongoing conversation which gives other people access to the possibility to which you are committed.
The only thing you are going to do today is: what you do today. Therefore, the only thing there is to do today is: what you do today. That’s all there was to do when you started no matter what you thought or think.
Most people go around thinking that what there is to do today is all that stuff that there is to do, that is to say, everything that isn’t done. This is a lie. This lie leads to stupidity. This stupidity leads to ineffectiveness. The ineffectiveness leads to fewer results being produced, leaving, apparently, more to be done. And there you have the downward spiral which is unworkability.
The only thing there is to do today is: what you actually do today! There is nothing else to do today! There isn’t anything to do today except what you actually do. That’s all there is to do today. If you actually grasp this, you should feel the muscles in your body begin to relax. A sense of freedom and power should begin to well up within you.
Now, you want to go to work, get to it, get at it, get it done. And here you have the upward spiral which is workability. And now you are making progress in the unending work of building and enjoying your own rainbow.
VW e-golf: Ron Doron in Northern Virginia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ciQHPPfgnc
e-golf road test: click for English subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsmgf49mIXk
Here in Silicon Valley, we have the notion of the “silicon valley civic” – an expensive car that’s as common here as the Honda civic is in other parts of the country. It used to be the BMW 3-series, but now, it’s cheaper versions of the Tesla Model S. It’s a status symbol for the wealthy. Electric cars are very common here. Most store parking lots have chargers. Part of that is CA’s mandate to manufacturers to sell some percentage quota of electric cars, and if they’re under quota on the electrics, they can’t sell internal combustion cars. (Let’s ignore for a second that our electric grid can’t handle the electric cars we already have since the greenies have resisted all progress. Charging a Tesla pulls about 20kW of power, something like what 15 average homes pull at any given time).
Tesla makes a lot of money from selling green car credits in CA. $130 million for its last financial year. In lieu of selling electric cars here, car companies can purchase credits from manufacturers which sold electric cars in excess of the ratio quota – right now that’s Tesla, Nissan and Toyota, in order of amount of credits sold. Tesla gets credits for the Prius, which is perhaps the most common car here. Sigh.
I completely disagree with this form of market distortion and any form of incentive subsidies. We’ve got tons of them in this nutty state, and Tesla’s subsidy is tiny compared to that for, say, solar power.
Anyhow, all that being said, I think that the Tesla is a damn cool car. It’s not going to compete with a GT-R, which has similar performance at a similar price point, or a Maserati which has similar size, but less performance. It’s a very large family car which can do occasional bursts of intense acceleration, can be charged at home, and requires very little maintenance. There are no oil changes, no gas station visits given typical use within range of home, no transmission fluids, very few moving parts in the motor. All you really have to worry about is coolant leaks for the battery and motor and bearings being greased. If I had $130,000 to burn, I’d love to have the P85D. For long trips outside of the charging network, you’d not take this car, you’d have to take your trusty old internal combustion car, or rent one.
I’m a car nut, I’ve been wrenching on them and racing them for years, and I’ve had the opportunity to drive many a fast car while teaching people how to drive fast. Nothing I have driven has a torque curve like an electric car. It’s exhilarating. Once battery technology is sorted out, I think electrics will replace the internal combustion engine for everyday driving due to performance and simplicity, but there will always be edge cases where an internal combustion engine will be advantageous.
“Kind of like the welfare loafers who love the welfare state, until they inherit some money; or win on a game show” or win the lottery and then see how big a bite Uncle takes out of that!
Lots of comments here! … I’m not sure if anybody corrected you yet, but your talk about Government Subsidies is completely inaccurate. A quick google search for “Porsche subsidy” turns up the following:
“Porsche AG faces a European Union probe over a 43.7 million-euro ($53.7 million) subsidy from the German government to help it build a compact sports-utility vehicle.” – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/porsche-faces-eu-probe-over-43-7-million-euro-german-subsidy.html
“Porsche’s hybrid Panamera S with electric motor and petrol engine will get £5,000 off the pricetag, thanks to a public subsidy” – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/27/90000-porsche-low-carbon-government-grant
http://ev.com/uk-government-campaigns-low-carbon-electric-cars-vans/ – talks about what Porsche models can get you the Gov subsidy.
—
Not to mention Porsche majorly got it’s start by building tanks for the Nazi party. Their entire business model has been and is HEAVILY subsidized.
Hi Danny,
Porsche does not have to get the government to give people money to buy Boxsters, Caymans or 911s.
That was the point being made.
Every car Tesla makes is a subsidized car.
Porsche can stand on its own two legs.
Tesla cannot.
That is not entirely true either… As those models also have Electric versions that qualify for the EV subsidies. Not to mention subsidies directly help support their manufacturing abilities.
http://www.porsche.com/all/media/pdf/Annual_Report_EN_2011.pdf
Search for the word ‘subsidies’ and you will find that Porsche will receive well over half a billion euros in the upcoming year to prop up them up. … That’s just on infrastructure alone! Millions more is being set aside to subsidize purchasing the actual vehicles.
The comparison of free-economics to Tesla’s subsidies just can’t be made with Porsche. There might be a better company to do the comparison to, but both companies are heavily supported by their home Governments with massive subsidies.
The thought that Porsche runs a business purely on free-market-economics, just isn’t accurate. Their history and current business model reflects the opposite.
So what?
I’m not defending subsidies – you are!
All subsidies are wrong. Tesla’s just a particularly egregious case.
The fact that Porsche (and other automakers) also cash in does not make what Tesla does ok. But at least the other automakers produce cars that can stand on their merits.
Tesla cannot.
The whole thing’s a despicable farce.
Bad enough to be forced to help pay for other people’s new cars. But how can anyone justify handing $7,500 to a guy to “help” him purchase a $60k exotic?
But wait, don’t change the channel, There is more!
What Is Form 8911: Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 set the definition of alternative fuels. However, the Internal Revenue Service considers electricity and fuels that consist of 85 percent or more of natural gas, liquefied or compressed natural gas, propane, hydrogen or ethanol to be alternative fuels, in addition to mixtures of biodiesel, diesel and kerosene with 20 percent or more volume derived from a biodiesel fuel. Storage tanks, dispensing equipment and electric vehicle charging supply equipment, or EVCSE, count as refueling property, according to the IRS.
Energized individual returns
The PluginCars website cites Navigant Research that projected sales of nearly 8 million plug-in electric vehicles from 2013 to 2014. If you buy a battery-powered car and install new EVCSE at your main home to recharge its batteries, you may be able to trim your tax bill through the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit.
The maximum credit is $1,000 or 30 percent of the installation cost, whichever is lower. Should you move to a new home during the year and install recharging equipment at the new residence, you can claim 30 percent of the cost of both installations up to a maximum of $2,000.
And lots more descriptions and things to know for your tax payer subsidized special eco car.
https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Tax-Deductions-and-Credits/What-Is-Form-8911–Alternative-Fuel-Vehicle-Refueling-Property-Credit/INF26156.html
The only reason all Tesla’s get a tax subsidy is because they only make EV’s. There is no evidence to support that Tesla could not survive without the tax incentive (if I am wrong, please share). The government is encouraging shifting from foreign oil to local electricity. It is not to prop up Musk. The big 3 get these subsidies too. Porsche has 3 PHEV models which ‘your tax dollars’ are subsidizing.
2015 Porsche Cayenne S E-Hybrid
$5,335.60
Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid
2014–15 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid
$4,751.80
Porsche 918 Spyder
2015 Porsche 918 Spyder
$3,667
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxphevb.shtml
“The only reason all Tesla’s get a tax subsidy is because they only make EV’s”
Well, yeah. Because EVs cannot make it on their merits. Which is the point I have been trying to make.
Yes, Porsche makes hybrids. So does Toyota. So do most automakers. But these are incidental to their business – or, to put a finer point on it – their business could exist without hybrids and EVs.
Tesla’s could not.
“Because EVs cannot make it on their merits. Which is the point I have been trying to make.”
Please provide data to back this statement up. This is just an opinion and conjecture that has no merit based on the $7500 subsidy argument alone.
The “data”?
They cannot be sold at a profit without subsidy.
Hence the subsidy.
If they were profitable to sell, they would not need the subsidy.
It’s an incentive – necessary to get “buyers” to overlook the serious functional compromises one must accept, such as preposterously long “refueling” times and limited range. Absent the incentive, why would I (for example) buy a Nissan Leaf that costs $10k more than a basic econo-box such as the Versa Note? Especially given the Leaf is inferior to the Note as a car? But if Uncle cuts me a check for $7,500… .
The Tesla is just this dynamic scaled up to obnoxious proportions.
And: It is vastly more than the $7,500 individual kickback to the buyer. Tesla’s entire operation is based on rent-seeking. One mulcting the taxpayers via government. His “business” would not exist without all the artificial props placed underneath it by the government. Crony capitalism, defined – and yet, this guy is portrayed as some sort of latter-day Henry Ford.
If his car is so fabu-licious, let’s see him sell one on his own, without paying people to buy it and without the government paying him to build it.
My finger is hovering over the “Clover” button…
The point of a subsidy isn’t to make a profit. … I think you misunderstand why the Gov subsidizes things.
Gov subsidies are designed to direct the growth of society in a way that benefits the future. It’s an investment. … In the case of EV, it’s to reduce the amount of gas-burning engines on the road. Something that will greatly help human breathing and reduce pollution and all the other ills that come with it down the road. (no pun intended)
It is not to turn a profit. Tesla isn’t even a profitable company, so your argument about subsidies helping them to be profitable, just isn’t valid. Because they are not profitable! …. Tesla is able to exist because of the people in the tech-community who invested into them. People who appreciate innovation over tradition. … Not because of the Government subsidies.
Your argument just isn’t valid because Porsche does currently receive and has received MANY subsidies over the years. Their success as a car company, is directly linked to those deals. Not to the efficiency of a few models. Their business remains afloat because Germany wants to see them thrive. Without subsidy funding for their manufacturing, their price tags would be higher. That’s basic economics.
Your argument can be better made by comparing to Toyota as Toyota came to the market with an EV BEFORE the subsidies even existed AND they are much more profitable on their returns than both Tesla and Porsche. … But even Toyota has had their Government deals too. So at the end of the day, the argument just doesn’t hold.
The thought that a company can get that big, without the help of the Government, just isn’t true. It’s a myth.
Even Apple had Government subsidies when it was going after the Academic market in the 90s. iPhones today can be purchased with Government money (you have to know how to claim it). And Al Gore sits on their board of directors ensuring their monopoly status.
The thought that a company is weak because it receives Government assistance, is a fallacy. … Even the top oil companies receive Gov help!
There literally isn’t a single fortune 500 company that made it to that list without the help of big-brother. All of them in some way shape or form got there because of subsidies, tax-credits, gov contracts or political shareholders pulling strings.
“Tesla isn’t even a profitable company, so your argument about subsidies helping them to be profitable, just isn’t valid.”
It speaks for itself.
How’s about you “benefit the future” without putting your hands in my pocket?
“The point of a subsidy isn’t to make a profit. ”
Well, you’re correct in that that isn’t the gunvermin’s purpose in offering a subsidy. Their goal is only and always to incentivize the sheeple to do things the way THEY think they should be done.
But businesses do need to make a profit, or they cannot continue to exist. And if that is true of Porsche as well as of Tesla, then throw them BOTH in the woods.
Go ahead and press that button, Eric.
Done, Phillip… I need a drink.
PS: Toyota loses money on every Prius. They are bankrolled – subsidized – by the sale of the company’s IC cars.
PS – Modern Car Knowledge 101:
New cars emit virtually nil pollution – so “greatly help human breathing” is utter nonsense. Especially in view of the fact, Clover, that your electric cars impose vastly more damage upon the environment than IC cars. They just do it elsewhere. Like China. Where the rare earth metals come from.
Gawd.
If you really believe that… take your new IC car and sit in it with the Garage door closed for a few hours. … Then come back and tell me how healthy you feel.
Clover:
95-plus percent of the exhaust emissions of a modern car are C02 (inert gas) and water vapor. Might bone up on your engineering before you spout your authoritarian collectivist politicking.
The CO2’s courtesy of the cat, converting the previously noxious gases into plant fertiliser that malignant eco-mentalcases have declared a pollutant.
But Danny, I removed my cat a while ago because it crapped out, so you can wail on me for destroying the planet the 70’s way.. 🙂
It boils down to government bureaucrats picking their favorite winners in a rigged game that the bureaucrat has no business doing for a paycheck. Why can’t my electric car get a break? The specious argument that it is “for the children” or it is “for the future unborns” is pure political BS that has been sprayed around since the 20’s with no measurable results. Unless you count millions of acres of “public” now inaccessible land taken off line, or resource “managed” by a unaccountable bureaucrats favorite corporation that the public never had a choice in deciding. Lot and lots of those profitable examples around.
If it is so great for humanity then every car sold by a loosing business plan (aka Tesla) should get a tax break. Better yet give every company claiming “environmental” a tax break, or no taxes at all if you put “environmental” in your business name. I guess we (thinking tax payers) should be happy that all the 3/4 billion dollar taken out of taxpayer pockets and funded into investors of Solyndra, who walked away with cash falling out of their pockets. I want my money back from them, Tesla and a hundred more like them that Uncle Sam riggs daiuly in DC. Why? So we can “feed the poor children that we choose” as billionaire fat cat Nancy Peolsi says.
By the way look into her husband’s extreme wealth at rigged politics tax payer expense as well. The “all caring for the future” couple my ass. Drink the Kool-Aid comrade if it lets you sleep well at night..
The math & accountability has never and will never work to anyone’s advantage except those in “the club” that you and I are not in.
….one of the very scenarios that the Founders of this country were trying to prevent when they sought to establish a very limited gov’t; and by trying to prevent a centralized government-centered economy. Unfortunately, their limited gov’t didn’t stay very limited for long…..
So, you LIKE having someone’s nose so far up your @$$ that you’re choking?
There’s an easier way to get the auto-erotic-asphyxiation paraphilia met.
Just leave us out of it.
We have a problem, BTW, with ALL companies – AND ALL PEOPLE – who will enforce (you say “direct”) the course of society in the way THEY think it SHOULD go. That ALWAYS leads to tyranny and democide. It’s the nature of the beast; fire burns, water is wet. Government seeks POWER and CONTROL.
Government shouldn’t be HELPING, ANYONE. (Not a comma splice, it’s used to show the pause.)
Government CREATES nothing. It LIVES OFF THE SKIM, TAKING from you to give to SOMEONE ELSE who is “more deserving.”
German government took from the Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, etc. To produce a proper, powerful, ARYAN nation. Were they wrong? I mena, they were THE GOVERNMENT, after all – how can you think they were WRONG, when their dick is all the way into your stomach, you’re so busy fellating GOVERNMENT…
I’m reminded of an old joke: The easiest way to make a Liberal a Conservative: Force them to move out of Mommy’s basement. Then they have to get a job and pay their own bills, and suddenly…. All that free sh!t, ain’t so free….
You are in fact endorsing cronyism:
“All of them [fortune 500 company] in some way shape or form got there because of subsidies, tax-credits, gov contracts or political shareholders pulling strings.”
That’s CORRUPT, dumb@$$. CORRUPTION, BY DEFINITION.
The grass is always greenest over the septic tank…
By the way, it is a $7500 tax credit, not money handed to Tesla by the Government. This just means the government is not collecting whatever percentage of these people’s taxable income bracket they are in (so it’s 30% of the $7500 at best). They are not taking your taxes and handing them to Tesla as you claim over and over.
Aren’t libertarians for cutting taxes?
Great point on the tax-credit… As this isn’t a real subsidy at all, it’s just paying less in taxes. … But giving 800 million euros to Porsche to build a factory in Germany is.
The argument made here is completely backwards.
Facts, Clover?
Like the fact the electric cars are unsalable absent massive subsidies?
Like the fact that the “environmental impact” of an EV/hybrid is greater than that of an IC car, due to the caustic compounds involved and the hideously earth-raping processes involved in extracting them?
Like the fact that 95-plus percent of a modern IC car’s exhaust stream is harmless C02 and water vapor (and, Clover, please look into which of the two is the more potent “greenhouse gas” before you spout off).
Oy vey.
Another collectivist authoritarian who doesn’t mind breaking a few eggs to make his omelette.
HOH vapour is the more potent greenhouse gas. Whatever a greenhouse gas is. As an industrial chemist I find the term “greenhouse” to be a complete lie. Greenhouses have high water vapour content, not high CO2 content.
Eric,
Especially, if the eggs belong to some one else.
In a similar vein:
I can be a great spender as long as some one else foots the bill.
Hi Mith,
Yup!
I never cease to be amazed by the casual – the glib – way these people dispose of other people’s money (and rights).
The violence has become so embedded and routinized that very few people even notice it anymore.
It is hardly “cutting taxes” when you have to buy an impractical $60K car which will depreciate to virtually nothing in a few years, to get your taxes “cut”.
That is not a tax cut. That is bribery.
A tax credit for buying product A over product B effectively lowers product A’s cost to the buyer. The ‘lower taxes’ in this case is just an accounting artifact. The government simply could collect the taxes from the buyer and then pay the same amount to the manufacturer towards the buyer’s new car.
Libertarians are for cutting taxes – not giving tax money to some at the expense of others.
And: Tesla’s business exists solely because of massive subsidies at the corporate/manufacturing level. The individual $7,500 kickback is just an inducement to “sell” otherwise unsalable cars.
I think we already made this point… But to somebody who can pay 60k+ for a car…. Can afford it weather they pay 7.5k extra in taxes or not.
Your assumptions on stealing just isn’t valid at all because the money didn’t come from you. It’s a tax-CREDIT…. Not a real subsidy. It’s money the customer doesn’t have to pay the Government.
This is going in circles…. I’m out for now. … Good luck pandering your false sense of independence!
If he can “afford” it, Clover, then he ought to pay full freight.
Also: You paid $15k to buy a seven-year-old SUV that rates 34 city, 30 highway. The same money could have bought (or nearly bought) a brand-new IC car that gets 40 (or more) MPG on the highway. The 2015 Honda Fit I reviewed recently, for instance. Which also has comparable interior volume, incidentally (the Escape is very space-inefficient).
So, how exactly does your choice “save money” – I mean, considering that your Escape will lose virtually all its value within the next seven years and by the time another seven years have rolled by, will be at the end of its useful life, if it hasn’t arrived there before then… while the new Fit will still be worth half or more what it cost new seven years from now…. and still have easily seven more years of daily driver service left in it… not to mention it gets better mileage and will never have maintenance/repair issues associated with its battery pack or electric motor…. because it hasn’t got those cost-complexity adders.
“It’s a tax-CREDIT…. Not a real subsidy. ”
Strong stupid in this one.
Me2,
LOL. 🙂 Thank you for that comment.
As Ron White said: You can’t fix stupid.
Good point! …. $7.5k really isn’t much to the people who are buying those kind of cars.
It’s not for the mass-market… it’s for the innovators.
The tech executives and companies who are buying them, make well more than that in a single day.
The “innovators”…
Stealing other people’s money is hardly new under the sun.
And neither, by the way, is the electric car.
It’s been an economic failure for 100 years now.
Paying taxes isn’t stealing. … Your more than welcome to move to another country if you feel like Washington is stealing from you.
But they aren’t. Your paying to play. … That is a fact of life. You get out, what you put in.
All the comforts you receive today (including this website / internet fiber optics / db servers / etc.) came to you because of Government spending and taxation. Without many of the first research project funding in the early days of computing, we wouldn’t have the internet as we know it today.
So… Don’t like it? Stop using it and stop paying taxes. … your allowed to leave the USA if you like. But fair warning: it’s not as comfortable in other parts of the world and you might be in for a shock. …. which is why I assume most people like you don’t ever actually leave despite threatening it over and over again.
Sigh…
Clover says “paying taxes isn’t stealing” … followed by the inevitable, “Your (sic) more than welcome to move to another country if you feel like Washington is stealing from you.”
PS Danny – The original (Internet as we now know it via DARPA) was a closed defense department system. Until business took it, risked money and bankruptcy (and there were plenty) to make it what it is for us to use. Obama is wrong, the public coffers did not build it.
Yo, Danny:
If I stick a gun in your ribs and demand 30-50% of your income, is that theft?
Then how is it NOT theft when The Gunvermin does the EXACT same thing?
Just because someone else has their finger on the trigger, doesn’t make it less theft.
It’s using a sniper with a laser dot, while I “ask” you for 50% of your yearly income. Go ahead – say No – I dare ya….
Nice house you got here. Be a shame if … something… happened to it.
Nice family you got here…. Be a real shame if something happened to one of them….
But I hear that white girls bring a pretty penny, especially if they’re not “women” yet (both meanings…)
Got a daughter? Is demanding her kidney “theft” if the President needs a kidney?
Or is it your “Patriotic Duty” to enable Dear Leader, regardless of cost?
Bear in mind, SCOTUS has already DECIDED that Congress can tax people at 100% of earnings. In other words: it’s THEIR money, they just allow you to keep some of it.
Just as the Police have no duty of care to actually SHOW UP, let alone ACT, when you call. It can take hours.
But I bet you believe a cop is available JUST to take care of you…? To wipe you clean after your fits of verbal diarhea?
You know, at least those with tourettes have an excuse.
When second count, 911 is minutes away!
“Paying taxes is not stealing.” Well, duh! It is collecting taxes (or even just attempting to do so) that is stealing.
The Declaration of Independence (remember that?) says that governments derive their JUST powers from the consent of the governed. I should not have to move to avoid something to which I did NOT consent.
Hi Danny,
I’d like to comment on the many fallacies embedded into your reasoning.
“All the comforts you receive today came to you because of Government spending and taxation.”
This statement employs two fallacies. Namely, “correlation = causation”, and that there are no opportunity costs associated with government spending. The fact that government spends money on technology does not mean that the technology would not exist absent government spending. Rather, it is likely that the technology would be better, as it would be designed to meet the needs of consumers who must purchase the benefits voluntarily. Most of the money the government spends on technology serves the interests of the government. So, most government funded research is initially directed at better ways of monitoring and controlling people, and better ways of destroying things and killing people. Applications of this research that actually help people are primarily created by entrepreneurs.
Also, government funding diverts many of the brightest minds away from research into beneficial technology, to war-making and surveillance technology. This is an example of “opportunity cost”.
“If you really believe that… take your new IC car and sit in it with the Garage door closed for a few hours. … Then come back and tell me how healthy you feel.”
This statement is an example of the failure to account for the “unseen” (please read Bastiats’ “That which is seen and unseen”) http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
Where do you think the power comes from for an EV? Aside from the tiny component of solar and wind, it comes from coal or nuclear. While nuclear power produces no immediately damaging emissions, long term storage of spent fuels may be a problem. And, a damaged and leaking reactor can certainly be a bad thing. As for coal, even modern plants produce as much or more pollutants to power an EV than a modern ICE (per vehicle mile). Then, factor in the resources needed to create batteries and the dangers of disposal, and it is likely that the long term environmental impact of an EV greatly exceeds that of an ICEV.
“Gov subsidies are designed to direct the growth of society in a way that benefits the future. It’s an investment.”
This one is really a whopper. First, it is factually false. Gov subsidies are designed to serve the interests of politically connected corporations. One of the perks of the political class is that they are entitled to “sell” other peoples resources for pennies on the dollar. This is a good deal for them because they extract these resources by force from other people (there own resources are never in play). It is a great deal for the likes of ADM, Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, etc… because they can buy a treasure trove of subsidies and special privileges for a few shells. Please read some public choice theory for elucidation. The sad fact, contra Paul Krugman, is that rent seeking and regulatory capture are the norm, not an aberration.
Second, governments cannot invest in anything in a meaningful way. An real investor bears the burden of risk. Gov bears no such burden because failure does not result in loss or punishment to government. In fact, the opposite is the norm: failure usually results in more funding.
Finally, your statement assumes that government is better able to “direct the growth of society in a way that benefits the future” than individuals acting freely. Governments, especially democratic governments, suffer from high time preference. Namely, they are concerned primarily about the immediate future. In democracies, politicians are most concerned about re-election. Thus, politicians are most concerned about a “quick fix” to any crisis or potential crisis. They are not concerned with the long term ramifications of their policy. After all, bad results from a current policy will just require “bold action” in the future. Politicians are the least capable people “to direct the growth of society in a way that benefits the future”.
Jeremy
Jeremy, you’re casting your pearls before swine. Anyone who has the audacity and/or stupidity to maintain that the state does not use the threat of violence to enforce it’s edicts, is not going to benefit from your articulate truisms. (But I think that I can speak for the rest of us when I say that the rest of us sure can enjoy it- and thanks for saving us the trouble!)
For sure, Moleman.
The replies were a beauty to read.
At least, some people ,’get it’.
The, “Like it, or Leave it” crowd, I don’t know about them, I think maybe they’re the product of vaccination brain damage or somethin’. …Maybe they consider themselves a part of, “The high N mighty club” a.k.a. ‘The Power Elite” because they identify with them and their local overlords, a.k.a. The Good Ole Boy’s club?
…I’ll stop there. what’s the point of saying more?
Insert image here x of man pulling on an ostrich head buried under the sand, to no avail. …Yank and yank, and that some bitch stubbornly stays there.
In the background the wicked witch cackles and screeches, “Don’t let anybody tell you it’s corporations and businesses create jobs,”
Hi Moleman,
Thanks for the kind words. I must admit that I still cling to the (probably vain) hope that “clover” is reachable. After all, “clover” claims to be moral and compassionate. It is unlikely that “clover” would ever directly do the things he insists that the State is properly empowered to do (but this may be due to cowardice, rather than character).
Perhaps “clover” could learn something from this:
http://www.mises.org/media/7640/Anatomy-of-the-State
Kind Regards,
Jeremy
Our house Clover is beyond reach, Jeremy.
He’s (and I do not write this with malice, but rather with sadness) just not very bright. His IQ’s probably around 100-105. Just enough to function, but incapable of awareness. Wedded to the system that’s “done all right by him.” If you read through his posts, a common theme presents: Utilitarianism. Nothing is ever dealt with – considered – in light of an abstract principle. Clover is incapable of conceptual thought. He goes through life on a piece-by-piece basis, his feelings manifesting through a spectrum of conditioned rote reactions – not unlike a trained labrador retriever.
Hi, Jeremy!
>”“clover” claims to be moral and compassionate.”<
Ah, yes. You know, I find that to be the case with just about all people whom I have debated with over the years (especially liberals)- I think the problem is, that their "morality and compassion" extends only to certain groups or "classes" of people on whom they would like to lavish those sentiments at the expense of others (i.e "Tax the "rich" even more to give more to the "poor"…).
Some also seem to think that it is "unfair" for people to live as they choose to, and reap the consequences or rewards of their own choices and actions, so thus should be forced to do things a certain way.
That, in conjunction with having their own ideas of just what constitutes "morality"- and the desire to inflict those ideas on others, pretty much drives their authoritarianism.
I'd think them a lot more sincere if they wanted to practice their morality and compassion on others at their own expense (instead of ours[communally], and only on those who were receptive to it.
But it seems, they are all the same: They desire redistribution of wealth (rather than voluntary charity) and force to inflict their "philanthropy" on others.
That's why most of them are so unreachable- despite the logic and facts presented to them. (Once in a while, you encounter an intellectually honest one who is just misguided….but they're the ones who quickly see the light when it is presented to them)
Or so it seems to me.
Just my $.02
PS: I recently was in a discussion with some liberal who is much like Clover- in the course of our discussion, the obvious occurred to her "Oh, you're a libertarian". she said. I replied "Yes, why aren't you?" -Never got an answer to that! I can only imagine the thought processes! [Maybe "This guy is right….but I just don't want to give up the ideals that I feel that others should be practicing"]
I think that we [libertarians] have the sense to realize that no matter what anyone does, not all people are going to live good lives in paradise- whether in a libertarian world or an authoritarian one- but we realize that by letting people be free, those whose actions warrant good outcomes, will be free to pursue those actions- just as would be those who practice not-so-good actions. We're willing to tolerate some evil, so that all may be free- whereas the authoritarian crowd seems to think that if they just had enough legislation/control, that all evil would cease- and of course, they don't seem to realize that evil will prevail no matter what- but under their system there is just much, much more unfairness, as certain people are shielded from liability for their actions, while others are unnaturally straddled with liabilities which are not their own. (But they don't seem to worry about that- just as long as their pet groups reap a benefit).
Sorry for the long-windedness!
Eric,
A trained Labrador retriever would bring more enjoyment to my then reading a typical post by Clóver.
“Innovators”-LOL- yeah, right….
I suppose the idjits who bought those electric commuter cars in the 80’s, which looked like something out of a video game, were innovators too!
Such vehicles are for those who give little consideration to practicality or economics. They buy the “latest and greatest” to “save the earth” because they buy into all the propaganda- They’re the same tools who believe in “Global Warming”.
Hardly innovators. More like dumb sheep who buy into the current propaganda, and buy a $60K car to save $50 a month on fuel, and then end up with something that is worth $725 a few years down the road…because they want to save the earth, but yet be able to drive 30K miles a year and live 60 miles from where they work.
(Eric, I think Clover either has a new identity, or a brother!)
Speaking of which…. “They’re the same tools who believe in “Global Warming”.”
Yes, did anyone else notice the article – I think from The blaze – the founder of the Weather Channel has sid global warming is a hoax? Polar ice is thicker, Polar Bears are doing fine, water levels NOT increasing, it’s NOT the end of the world?
Yes, saw that one posted several places, even (gasp) Gary North.
And check this one out –
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/10/ebola-2.html
It’s too late to do anything about global warming destroying the Earth, but we need to try anyway? Clover to the nth power.
You miss the point entirely with your biased irrational Tesla hate article. It’s estimated that there are 1.4 trillion proven reserves of petroleum left in the world. At the rate we consume, we will be looking at producing 20% of the oil we currently use by 2040, a mere 25 years away. The implications of gas being 5-10 times more expensive with adjustment for inflation will have devastating effects on human civilization, from dramatically more expensive food to a trade and tourism industry completely shut down.
Tesla wants to change that, and they are doing what no other company is willing to do (at least till they came along), and that is sells cars that run on renewable energy that people actually want to buy. Tesla is first succesful car maker in half a century. They are also just starting to become profitable after their initial buildup and infrastructure investments, and should continue to do so. These government perks are there for them to use, so why not use them? They needed help to get to where they are because the concept of electric cars is a hard sell, and the technology and infastructure didn’t exist. If the government said hey, we will pay your readers every time they view your site, because you are a great writer but we see you need help paying for your servers so we want you to have more views, would you turn them down?
Randy,
The “peak oil” thing has been addressed at length here several times already. In brief, it is an assertion premised on several false/out-of-date assumptions and belied by a number of facts. In any event, subsidizing the purchase of exotic high-performance luxury vehicles for the very affluent is grotesque by any standard.
I’d very much like to have my own airplane – ideally, a jet with an afterburner. I could get places so much more quickly.
Want to “help” me buy one?
For more on the myth of Peak Oil, and why “global warming” may be a GOOD thing, see here:
http://www.garynorth.com/public/10782.cfm
Oh my.. Peak oil is a myth.. If you believe something silly like that, especially if you’re moderating your own website where it has indeed probably been discussed at length，then trying to convince you otherwise is a waste of both our time.
As for your example, if helping you to purchase a jet with an afterburner with my tax money (even if you are probably wealthy) helps with developing the infrastructure for everyone to one day have jets with afterburners, then yes, I will gladly fork over. Especially if the investment in jets with afterburners guarantees that in my later years (50-70) I’m not living in a society where most of my money will be spent on food and water because we decided not to invest in jets with afterburners when I was young.
Tesla is also working as fast as possible to bring the price of their cars down, even going as far as to garentee that their next generation models will be as cheap as 30,000$. Again, this can only be achieved with the technology gaining traction and scaling up in a sceptical market place. As you fully know and mentioned in your article, that technology has its limitations, which limits it’s appeal.
It seems your issue is with the government, not Tesla who simply offers what is given to them.
If Peak Oil is NOT a myth, why didn’t we run out of oil back in the 70’s, when it was first promoted.
True, we will eventually run out of oil (assuming abiotic oil is not true), but, unless the gunvermin screw around with the market too much, it will not be for some time, and practical alternatives (NOT solar or wind power) will have been developed.
And yes, gunvermin IS the primary issue most of us here are fighting, but rent-seekers like Tesla compound the problem.
PtB, the oil has been running out since the 19th century. The day of no more oil is just over the horizon. Always just over the horizon. No matter how much is found no matter how little is used, it’s always just a few years away.
I do not accept a government or a political power seeking person or group that tells me I have to conserve or do without but they continually launch wars and support a global military presence. The US military is the biggest energy consumer on the planet. They have a strategic and tactical need to conserve, that is one which has nothing to do with the oil running or global warming, just a fundamental battlefield reason, but the wars still go on and their hardware is not fuel sipping. Maybe more than yesterday but still pigs. Those that tell me what to do but don’t do it themselves are automatically discredited.
Randy,
Tossing out “silly” is not much of an argument. If “peak oil” is imminent. perhaps you can explain why production continues to increase? Why the cost of oil is going down rather than up?
One problem with the “peak oil” hypothesis is that it’s more than 40 years old. What was considered technically and economically impossible in 1970 is now very possible, vis-a-vis locating and retrieving oil.
Facts, Randy.
And regarding my jet airplane and Tesla: If you willingly/freely “fork over” your money for my jet (and I for your electric Edsel) then we have no problem; or rather, no argument. You’re free to don a rubber gimp suit and do as you like – as am I.
What I take issue with is forcing anyone to subsidize such things. And it’s especially obnoxious in Tesla’s case given each electric Edsel he “sells” is “bought” by a very affluent person (who else can afford to pay a minimum of $60k for a car?).
It’s bad enough being forced to “help” the economically out-o’-luck. But it’s the height of effrontery for rich people to financially rape working and middle class taxpayers to finance their got-damned toys.
It is silly, like your rubber gimp suit comment, and not an argument at all. This is because no matter how many links you throw at me me, no matter how much you may persuade me otherwise, I will not change my mind on peak oil, and dismissed the idea of countering you because as you said you have discussed it yourself at great length. Again, a silly waste of time.
You brought up “facts”, so I’d like to share some too. It is certainly true that oil previously inaccessible is now able to be extracted and refined with the latest technology. It is also true that fuel is being used more efficiently and that yes, due to a recent discovery in the gulf coast, oil prices have fallen dramatically.
It is also a fact that the methods to find these deposits are more advanced then the 1970’s, and that many wells in the world where oil was abundant are now dry and sealed. It is also a fact that oil is the result of compression of Prehistoric plant life. Knowing these things you can infer beyond a reasonable doubt that A, the world had a certain biomass at one point, a finite and measurable number that ended up as oil over the course of millions of years and B, that we’ve already used so much of it from mapping out existing derilect wells. Scientists have done this, and the imperial evidence is there to suggest that before we reach the 2nd half of this century, we will be extracting far less while having greater demand due to things like population increase.
This can only mean that if we want to maintain civilization here on Earth, we must start using alternative and renewable energy sources. The current government has been supplied this information, and has taken measures to boost renewable energy sources, and that goes far beyond electric cars. These measures are in subsidies and tax breaks that are offered to companies in these fields. Again, for the third time, Tesla doesn’t force this or lobby or petition, they simply offer what is there for them to offer. If you still want to hate the company based on false assumptions, that is your prerogative. Yes, the wealthy don’t need help purchasing their toys, but there is a benifit in enough wealthy purchasing electric cars to bring the entire industries costs and prices down as to make it affordable for middle and lower classes, much faster than it otherwise might have. Like I said earlier, we will pay the money either way, either investing in a new infastructure, or repairing the damage later on if we don’t.
Randy, I’m not sure if we should be calling anything other than coal “fossil fuel”, because methane and many other organic carbon compounds have been discovered in vast quantities in other parts of the Solar System and galaxy, where no dinosaur has ever set foot. Titan being just one example.
Although ethanol is considered “renewable”, there’s lots of evidence to show that it’s simply not worth the venture for many reasons.
1. Not that I care for the scam, but ethanol manufacture alone outputs more CO2 than conventional fuel.
2. It contains less energy.
3. It drives up the cost of food globally.
4. It starves people in poor countries.
5. Most engines can’t currently use it.
Ethanol’s definitely not green or renewable, it’s rather toxic to every economy except the guys that make it for subsidy.
So what would you posit as a truly renewable energy source?
Nuclear fusion to make electricity requires fuel, the Sun does it every day from Hydrogen but it’s hard to make that a possibility here.
Again, Hydrogen fuel for combustion or in cell/electric form sounds good, but you have to ask why it’s not everywhere. Will greenies allow us to use sea water for Hydrogen fuel? I doubt it because It’s finite.
Nuclear power plants are very clean and efficient (just ask the French), but the greenie/EPA partnership just won’t allow that. Uranium is also finite.
Battery tech is piss poor for cars at this time, and very polluting to make if you look at how the Prius (Pious) batteries are manufactured by shipping raw materials all over the globe and the waste products.
Oil is in everything we use. Every plastic. I’m not surprised greenies aren’t using computers made from wood because they’re primarily hypocrites, driving their SUV’s into plantations and chaining themselves to trees, then going home to their Tasmanian Oak-furnished homes.
Wood itself is like ethanol, not entirely renewable. When you build a permanent structure with it all that carbon is taken out of the system, required to make new trees.
In countries where coal, oil and gas for heating have been made almost unaffordable by the Gorebull Warbling scam, vast swathes of forest have been stolen instead.
The greatest problem in finding alternative energy sources is regulation. The EPA and greenies don’t realise (or give a flyin’ rats’ arse for anyone else) that we need cheap energy to find alternative sources faster. Knobama deliberately stalling Keystone XL and all its vast benefits for 6 years to pander to green blob socialism is just one small example for what’s wrong with the world today.
No argument there, there are possibly infinite sources of energy off world, and yes, ethanol is a scam of the highest order. Also you are completely right in that anything labeled as green technology often requires massive amounts of non renewable energy to produce. This is an infrastructure problem, and one which Tesla addresses. Their nationwide supercharger network currently under construction is designed to incorporate solar panels, and tap into a grid that is increasingly turning renewable itself.
As for manufacturing and shipment of all raw materials for that infrastructure, that will be non renewable for the immediate future. If there are significant engineering, cost and political factors holding back coupes and sedans from going electric, then it will be some time before 18 wheelers, mining vehicles, ships and aircraft can follow suit. Oil truly is in everything we use, but the supply simply won’t last. It isn’t an option really to ignore or forestall addressing if we don’t want a breakdown in that infrastructure due to peak oil. I’m afraid your wish for regulation will be granted when oil starts to become very expensive, and I doubt that can be avoided.
As for Keystone and affordable energy, there are several things to that. Under the current administration oil extraction as skyrocked compared to before, despite anyone claiming otherwise. This has been in the interest of having affordable energy. Keystone is a big question mark though, because there are very convincing arguments that the cost to build it and maintain it will inert any real vain or profit. I don’t know that, and I’m sure it will eventually be built anyways when oil prices justify it’s existence (along with many other pipelines environmentalists will hate), but from what I’ve read it seems that is a big reason it is not moving forward.
Do you understand that you are the bane of everyone here’s existence Randy.
You’re absolutely wrong that some committee of appointed experts somewhere will be of any value to anyone. Quite the opposite, actually. At most, they will aid and abet the parasites to better accomplish their thefts.
In all of human history, using the political means has only hindered society. Nowhere is there a single example of it helping anyone.
The idiocy you champion is a negative sum game. Productive Peter is robbed to pay Crony Paul and a large additional amount of wealth is stolen or destroyed to pay the thug swindler who perpetuate these wealth transfer schemes.
Your opinions and guesses about progress and the future are less than worthless. It would be better for all if you would stay out of things you clearly do not understand.
Men with ability and capital will accomplish things, as they always do. The more statists like you get in their way, the less they will be able bring to fruition.
All you will do is lick some boots of some tyrants you inexplicably believe are helping society. And shake your pom poms and blow kisses at the murderous usurpers who are hindering humanity’s progress for their own selfish games and alliances of power.
Hi Randy,
Electric cars are not even close to making any kind of economic (or event functional) sense. A CNG-fueled, IC-engined car can make a much more rational case for itself. The fuel is almost limitlessly available and domestically produced; it is inexpensive and burns cleanly. Elaborate and costly technology is not required.
Instead, we have cars like the Tesla, which start at $70k and which have half the best-case range of almost any new IC car, including ones that cost a fourth as much (and aren’t subsidized by wealth transfer payments from the working class and middle class to the rich).
It takes an epic asshole to demand that other people “help” him purchase a $70k-to-start exotic luxury-performance car.
Peak Oil is a farce. Yes, the oil will run out someday (probably, unless abiotic oil theory turns out to be fact). But that is NOT what Peak Oil claims. Peak Oil claims that the oil will run out SOON and we need to do something about it NOW! Right now, with known reserves and existing technology, we have a lot of oil left. And no one knows when (or if) the horizon will stop moving.
One thing the gunvermin could do that would help would be to decriminalize the growing of hemp, which is renewable and has a number of known uses and unknown potential.
PTB “But that is NOT what Peak Oil claims. Peak Oil claims that the oil will run out SOON and we need to do something about it NOW!”
Well, Hubbert’s research and claim was that we would run out of ‘easily recoverable oil’ not that we would run out of it entirely at Peak OIl.
Peak economically available oil. The point where, on average, in real value, the extraction and refinement process will continue to become more expensive.
To see this in the Tar Sands, search ‘natural gas bitumen oil extraction’ or this
‘The processing of bitumen into synthetic crude requires energy, which is currently being generated by burning natural gas. In 2007, the oil sands used around 1 billion cubic feet (28,000,000 m3) of natural gas per day, around 40% of Alberta’s total usage. Based on gas purchases, natural gas requirements are given by the Canadian Energy Resource Institute as 2.14 GJ (2.04 thousand cu ft) per barrel for cyclic steam stimulation projects, 1.08 GJ (1.03 thousand cu ft) per barrel for SAGD projects, 0.55 GJ (0.52 thousand cu ft) per barrel for bitumen extraction in mining operations not including upgrading or 1.54 GJ (1.47 thousand cu ft) per barrel for extraction and upgrading in mining operations.’
That ain’t cheap. If the natural gas was not already there, this would not work economically today.
Hubbert’s dates could be a little off but the premise is sound. We would not be boiling the crap out of Tar Sand if there were an easier source.
Occasionally, a new easy field is found and new technology can stretch the curve a bit but unless the stuff grows somewhere we have not seen, we are somewhere near the end of the easy stuff.
Me2 – “Well, Hubbert’s research and claim was that we would run out of ‘easily recoverable oil’ not that we would run out of it entirely at Peak OIl.”
But the point is, “easily recoverable” is a moving target.
Yes we will probably NEVER run out of oil completely, because at some point the cost of production will exceed other alternatives. But gunvermin actions IMPEDE the discovery of those practical alternatives, rather than expedite them, because someone with big guns to back them up gets on a hobby horse and will not allow ALL the options to be considered equally.
The peak oil believers are also some of the biggest believers in meddling with the economy. We should not be surprised then that we have a distorted economy that shifts efforts and resources to places that they would not otherwise go.
The original peak oil theory was not meant to be world market in scope. It was specifically for wells in the USA at a specific level of technology. As the variables change so does the curve. We may be past the peak, the peak may be soon, the peak may be a 100 years from now. The fact is that people know how to make crude oil now. Simply make it from agricultural wastes, old tires, what have you. So where is the peak? who knows, but the simple fact is that there won’t be any horrible shocks if we just let markets work properly.
Oil extraction has increased on private land only. Extraction is down on public lands.
Therefore oil extraction has increased in spite of government, not because of it.
It’s not silly at all. You’re a got-dammed buggerer.
For the life of me, I can’t understand anyone trying to have a civil conversation with your sort when you say right to their face: “I’d like to force myself into your life and sodomize you personally. And also, via proxy through the force of govt. Being a citizen is a social contract where we all agree to be pinned down and fucked by the state, good and hard.”
You’re a fucking monster.
Clover is also fucking monster, what does it matter the IQ of someone trying with all their might to fuck you up the ass. And also cheering on roving gangs of state agents whose sole purpose is legal gangbangery?
Clover is here to gloat about all of you. It excites him, thinking of all you productive captives being taught via anal persuasion just what it is you owe Clover and his state.
Do you really imagine you can reason with the type of fiends who jet off to exotic locales to hold high level talks about how they are going to ass fuck the mundanes in the next fiscal year?
You’re all insane. There is no benefit of the doubt to be given to these intrusive, relentless rapists. They live by the anal pirate sword. May they turn on each other and all die from each other’s anal pirate sword.
Having a state elected office for buggerer in chief. Or constable for capturing buggerees. None of this is legitimate. It’s not an occupation.
It’s predatory animal behavior of the lowest sort. And nothing more. We have to rub their noses in their philosophical filthy lowlifery as best we can. They should hate themselves, and lose the will to hunt and gather victims for their statist debauchery.
You parliamentarian debate queens really need to wake up and smell the anal chafing and rectal bleeding, while you still might be able to do something about it.
Don’t imagine for a second you have the upper hand with any of these predatory fudge pack hunters.
Tor,
That screed was worthy of Hunter S.Thompson… I salute you!
Randy,
You’ve asserted the truth of “peak oil” – it’s therefore on you to support your assertion.
The premise, “we’re running out!” has a certain superficial appeal because it’s true that everything on this earth is ultimately a finite resource. But the flaw in your position is the assumption that known reserves are in fact actual reserves. The evidence suggests actual reserves are enormous and far from being depleted.
You defend Tesla for taking advantage of what’s available. Let me ask you: If you came upon a mugging victim, lying in the street, would you feel ok about taking his shoes? After all, they’re just kind of “there”…. right?
Hi Tor,
Thanks for your input. I appreciate it when someone cares for the weak and opposes tyranny of the strong. We all need more of that, especially when wage inequality is at its highest levels since the late 1920’s in the United States. Anyone who has opened up U.S. history book knows that the Great Depression took place shortly afterwards. Though the causes of that are up for debate, I’m one to believe that disproportionate levels of wealth in the hands of the most successful people played a significant role.
When I make a prognosis of global trends decades into the future, I don’t do it baselessly. 97% of the worlds scientists are in consensus on global warming, and it’s harm to human habitation of Earth, far from the appointed committee of experts somewhere that are of worthless value. I say “human habitation” because I often disagree with environmentalists approach of saving the planet and the wild life, when really 99.9% of all species that ever existed are extinct (and the vast majority of that wasn’t our interference) and the planet will continue onwards just fine till our Sun turns into a red giant billions of years from now and vaporizes it. These problems are about us and preserving our habitat, not the dreamy bullshit you typically get from an environmentalist, and that’s how I look at it just so you better understand where I’m coming from.
Yes peak oil is highly debatable, and I’m well aware that there may be up to 30 times the 11.4 trillion reserves I quoted earlier. Those reserves are extremely difficult to get at though, so hard in fact that the energy spent to extract will be equal to or greater than what’s extracted, and will become prohibitively expensive compared to alternate sources as time goes on as a result. Oil will peak regardless of how much there is.
The future is indeed incalculable as you said, however that doesn’t mean we can’t take steps to influence and alter it. Tesla is a company that tries to do that. Their technology is nascent and unproven, with a currently inadequate charging network and batteries that leave something to be desired. They however keep pushing aggressively to make their business model better and cheaper for mainstream consumers, with a 35,000$ consumer level vehicle expected in 2017 along with a order of magnitude increase in charging stations over the next two years. They even recently released all their tech patents as open source, for all their competitors to use. They willing gave up millions of dollars in research, much of their professional efforts and time as well as their competitive advantage to advance the cause of electric vehicles. Together along with the fact that they only recently became profitable is a totally different picture from what your article paints them as.
As for the governments role in this, I have a different view. I absolutely believe that government has been an enabler of great things, despite your claim otherwise. Off the top of my head I can think of the advent of nuclear technology that supplies a large portion of the worlds energy, the Apollo program which no doubt inspired a whole generation of scientists and explorers, and the international highway system that you enjoy as a vehicle enthusiast. Not to mention the relative order and stability that in their absence would not exist, but instead a state of anarchy that was strongly suggested from your comments. Sure, it’s the cool thing to do, bash the government and blame it for so many problems, as you rightly should (or no one would fix anything if we didn’t protest it in the first place). At times it can indeed be a total draconian cluster fuck. Look at arming militants and funding proxy wars as a foreign policy agenda that has failed since the Nixon administration started, as well as the early mentioned appalling levels of wage inequality to clue you in on how backwards things can be with government. I’m not an indoctrinated government drone “licking the boots of the usurpers”, but I stand by process of democracy and hope that we can do better as time goes on.
In order to do better we have to recognize climate change, address our reliance on fossil fuels, and institute broad economic reforms. When I look at the oil industry, I see record profits with massive layoffs, 11,500 of them in just the last few years, with many more (probably double that) expected due to the recent and temporary fall in oil prices. It would be madness to bank on these people for our economic future, and I believe the TRUE wealth transfer scheme. Our taxes are spent on questionable things, but I still believe investing in a start up industry that could have significant economic benifits later such as subsidizing electric cars is a good idea. You disagree, and that’s fine because you may be right, but that’s how I feel, it’s a smart move. Does the government encourage all sort of financial inequality, yes it does, but I don’t think the subsidies are one of those.
If I’m the bane of everyone’s existence here then I will gladly never comment on this site again. I don’t enjoy donning a rubber gimp suit and being subjected to a flurry of anal penetration jokes while your editor buddy high fives you while musing collectively at stamping clovers on things you disagree with. If my opinion and hopes for the future are cast aside simply because they are different from yours, then it truly is a zero sum game as you said. It may make me a “parliamentary debate queen” as you characterized it, but at least I care enough about my opinions to stand by them. I engage others that think differently from me while keeping an open mind, in the search of a deeper truth. The culture of your site doesn’t seem to permit that, so to you for the final word.
Randy, we disagree with you because you’re wrong. The culture of this site is fact. Apologies if you somehow missed that. Some do, most don’t.
The 97% consensus about AGW is a farce. I bet you know the details, but for the benefit of everyone else, here are the specifics:
Randy, your flapping gums are parroting stuff you either know nothing about or you’re choosing to be ignorant for your ideological beliefs.
Science is not done by consensus or belief.
On peak oil, there’d be far less chance of that if Greenpiss and their hypocritical gang of SUV-driving, tree-spiking, wine-quaffing green-living-pretenders allowed oil extraction in every part of the US, including national parks where underground energy resources are particularly useless to nature.
Link for the “nonsensus”:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/07/thats-a-0-3-consensus-not-97
Here’s the graphic for Hubbert’s Peak Oil prediction. Oil was supposed to sharply decline during the year 2000 at less than 13 billion barrels per year.
Here’s a graph of the world daily production rate, at the far right in 2012, oil was produced at 74.644 million barrels a day, which is 27.245 billion per year, more than twice the previous estimated peak. Production increases each year by 2.5%.
The peak oilers keep resurrecting this long dead theory, the latest prediction being that we will reach the peak oil apocalypse sometime in the 2050s.
Clive Mather, CEO of Shell Canada, said the Earth’s supply of bitumen hydrocarbons is “almost infinite”, referring to hydrocarbons in oil sands
You ignore the fact that gasoline and other petroleum fuels can be, and are being produced from biomass. Look into a company called Virent.
http://www.virent.com/products/gasoline/
“You ignore the fact that gasoline and other petroleum fuels can be, and are being produced from biomass. ”
Yes, but at what cost? And is it really a net energy gain?
I agree Teslas are a crock, the only bright spot is Musk has enough good press to maybe finally break the dealer cartel. I just read that Michigan ruled against him selling directly without going through a dealer network, so since he has the money and clout to fight this through the courts (corrupt as they are) it might someday be possible to buy direct from the manufacturer.
I’ve never been back to a dealer for any of the cars I’ve owned over my many years, I do my own maintenance & repairs for most problems and have a few good independent shops around here for anything beyond my capabilities. In the internet age one should be able to go to any manufacturers website and order the exact model and options you want (without having to buy a package with a bunch of stuff you DON’T want) and pick it up at a freight yard, or even have it delivered to your door for a fee. Should cost thousands less than a dealer price, judging from the digs some of the dealers around here live in: a giant compound on Martha’s Vineyard, private jet, penthouse at the Ritz Carlton, etc.
Hoping I live long enough to see this, but not holding my breath.
Hello, so I haven’t been posting often to this forum, but I definitely enjoy Eric’s posts and agree with them on several levels. That said
I presently own the following vehicles:
1995 Chevy Suburban K1500 (own outright, bought used from family)
2014 Chevy Cruze Diesel (Bought in September, Labor Day cash back deal and financed at 1% / 72 mos)
2001 BMW R1150GS (own outright, bought used from family)
2014 Zero SR (3.49% / 60 mos, second Zero, first one was 2013 Zero S which mfgr bought back for problems, got ~$1400 government kickback on 2013 form) I park it and charge it inside the house.
Now, that’s a very mixed list of vehicles. Way too many for one person. Totally impractical for day to day use.
Let me tell you what they’re for.
The Suburban is really great off-road and in the snow. It has a Class III box hitch. It’s basically the “mother ship” in case the Zero flakes out (the new one has been really great, the old one needed one “hitch-up”). It also gets 16MPG, so it’s no daily driver.
The Zero runs a very straight line, 60 miles each way commute into some of the densest traffic in the country, and I’m able to plug in at both ends. It is a “no-pipes” motorcycle, therefore it takes lives. However, no clover knows I’m even there until I have passed them, which is just how I likes it. Plugging it in at each end is a commitment to be in that location anywhere from 5-7 hours, depending on how crappy traffic was. The crappier the traffic was, the shorter the charge time.
The Cruze Diesel lets me go from New York to Texas in 3-4 tanks. It has just enough power to pull a Class I hitch that can drag the Zero from one metro area to another.
The BMW is the SHTF bike, when all other modes fail.
The Zero has other potential uses over time, not yet exploited. I’m looking forward to being able to use the battery it hauls for solar charging and/or for medium-term power backup, like a UPS, in the event of a SHTF situation. This will require more investment and time.
It’s all extremely wasteful, and it works for me. It also avoids any fuel monocultures and provides complimentary functionality where required.
Also, don’t discount the value of a CostCo membership. Back when Sandy hit, and the gas station lines were 12 cars+ deep, I had no problem getting gas at CostCo. Yes, no Diesel at CostCo, but with 700-900mi range on a full tank, that can wait a few days.
Also, what’s your opinion of Waze? It seems to me like it can be used like a radar detector without the radar, but obviously the tracking component is very disturbing. At least one uses it at their discretion and with consent.
My local Sam’s Club does carry diesel, and @ $0.05-0.10/gal. below anywhere else around. That almost pays my annual membership right there.
I’ve considered it. My nearest Sam’s Club is ~20 miles away, and there is one other sort of on my way to work. My nearest CostCo is ~9 miles away, but there are like 3 others in between me and work. The cost of filling up the Suburban makes having access to the CostCo very useful. The BJ’s nearby matches the gas prices, and AFAICT, doesn’t have Diesel either.
The Northeast is just about the worst place to have a Diesel, also. Usually, the price is slightly higher than premium around where I am. In NJ, though, it’s often between regular and plus.
The CostCo near me has gas but no diesel, unfortunately, the Sam’s Clubs near me have neither. I’ll be watching, though.
I hear you. The Sam’s I go to is only 2 blocks off I-270, actually less out of my way than the nearest options price wise. One other Sam’s in the area has gas, but no diesel, and the 3rd has neither. And with only a 14 gal. tank (TDI), not worth a large detour.
Price here in Maryland is usually a bit less than premium, but more than plus.
You write, “Accelerate pedal to the metal more than a handful of times or run it up to 80 and hold it there – and watch the battery charge indicator drop more rapidly…” I drive my Tesla S85 @75-80mph to my brothers house all the time, about a 90min trip, the battery doesn’t die, lol. I do hard accels from red lights frequently as well and again >shocker< my car is fine. Do you know anything about the S85? You are severely misinformed and I can tell you have NO first hand experience using this car.
Hi AJ,
I don’t doubt that you are able to drive your Tesla 90 minutes to your brother’s house. I don’t believe you are able to drive it for 90 minutes at 75-80 without the battery’s range being severely depleted.
Note that I did not say “die.” That’s your word.
I agree the battery does not “die.”
But let’s talk about how much range you’ve got left after running your car for 90 minutes at 75-80… .
Be honest.
Eric,
I know I would not wish to make the 90 minute return trip without charging the battery pack back to full charge.
90 minutes @ 75-80 mph average is about 105-120 miles.
A return trip would be a white knuckle affair for me knowing I would not have any conenient means of charging up till I returned home. Similar to traveling home low on petrol without any cash/plastic to buy fuel since I forgot my cash/plastic at home.
Hi Mith,
And as with any electric car, the Tesla’s range is dramatically (and negatively) affected by use of accessories such as heaters (and AC), lights… as well as how you drive it. But the Tesla is especially vulnerable because – weirdly – it is also a performance car.
The blowjob press has never, for example, run a Tesla up to 75-80 with the AC running … held it there for say an hour… and reported how long the battery lasted…
True story (and inside baseball, which I will probably get grief for publicizing but fuck it; it’s war): VW has an electric Golf in my regional press fleet (HQ in the DC area). The wretched thing has only been delivered to journalists within 30 miles of the garage where the press fleet is kept (which excludes me) because that’s proved to be its maximum real-world range limit. They tried to take it out farther and it croaked and had to be flatbedded.
Hahahaaa.. Maybe they should add a crank handle to it, like a rechargeable flashlight 😉
Anyone else remember seeing original Beetles w/a wind up key stuck on the trunk (boot, to you, Rev)? I guess it’s not funny with the new ones.
As was noted in the article the ‘business’ Mr Musk is in is Rent Seeking NOT auto manufacture. His $60K car is a fashion statement for his fellow 1%’er thru rent seeking cohorts- “look at the cool toy I am making you middle class chumps buy for me and there is NOTHING you can do to stop us, ever…….”.
IF the real market were to drive gas to $10 -15/gal with prospects of the famine lasting for a decade or more there would be a place for an intown electric commuter car WITHOUT a fed subsidy.
Will el Presidente be seen in an electric limo any time soon? I think not.
[HEH] The important question, how soon before he’s in a hearse? 😀
He clearly deserves it, based on his wars of aggression, drone strikes, etc. But you know TPTB would take advantage of his assassination to pile on higher and deeper than they already have.
Oh, Jean…that’s TERRIBLE!
….getting my hopes up like that! 😉
There’s a few humor inducing moments with electric cars.
1. Tesla talks a lot about their planned ‘quick-charge’ stations, where instead of charging, they’ll replace the whole battery pack with a ‘new’ one that’s fully charged. The obvious problems being you have no idea how good or bad that ‘new’ pack will be (Sure, someone will inspect it, right???) and if I remember correctly, the cost of this was was something like $100+.
2. Where does electricity come from? This one always makes me giggle when you hear about the wonders of this. Solar – inefficient, but dreamy. Wind – STAGGERINGLY inefficient, but oh so wonderful. Natural gas – NO FRACKING! Coal – Dirty!!! Oil – NO BLOOD FOR OIL! Nuclear – YOU’LL KILL US ALL! So we’re back to unicorn farts and fairy piss.
3. Where do batteries come from? Another giggle fest. Batteries are made from metals, dug out of the ground. But no one wants a strip mine in their backyard, so where do we get these. Oh yeah, we bomb the ever loving crap out of foreign countries and let connected businesses setup show (ala Afghanistan for the lithium).
Even ignoring all other facts (as the electric car proponents seem to do…), the biggest debacle in the adoption opf electric vehicles, is that the generating of electricity is very inefficient- much more so than the efficiency of an internal combustion engine whose power is used directly.
If everyone were to switch to electric cars right now and keep driving the same distances that they always have, our use of energy would actually soar.
I just love how “they” never mention that. It’s like “O-K, we have vehicles that use 97% of the energy contained in the fuel that they use; lets trade them for vehicles that run on electricity, whose generation only reaps about 50% of the energy contained in the fuel used to generate it…..but since the electric generating plants are out of sight and thus out of mind…we don’t care; ’cause it’s someone else’s problem- just as long as we can live in crowded cities and drive 200 miles a day at 60MPH!”.
Moleman, the thermal efficiency of the ICE isn’t that great at present. However your point still stands. After generation, transmission, battery charging/discharging losses, and the final efficiency of the motor, the electric car probably is about a wash. Except it takes a lot more to build an electric car raw material wise. Mechanical complexity is lower, but the raw materials are more varied and environmentally intensive.
But then the electric car fan says it can run on solar or wind or nuke…. great. Except environmentalists have reasons to oppose all of those too.
When we can finally run stuff on ‘Tesla Technology’ that is legend of the Nikola’s car that ran off electric power from the “ether” then the electric car will be just fine. Until then I think they’ll be wanting. There are just too many issues with charging batteries that will probably always be present. At least until significant and very expensive infrastructure changes.
Funny thing is, Brent, all them green lib-r-als would crucify me for driving vehicles that only get 11MPG- but yet I’m doing more to “save the planet” [ 😉 ] than Ed Begley Jr. and Al Gore- in that I have oriented my life in such a way that I rarely need to drive. Whereas all them green commies, they want to “save the planet” and dictate how others should live; and have a massive gov’t subsidized transportation infrastructure….anything EXCEPT accepting the possibility that should live in such a way so as to not need to frequently travel long distances at 60MPH.
They portray it as a good thing that a lot of millenials have left the ‘burbs for the cities…..as if those cities are not heavily dependent upon transportation for their very existence, even if the hipsters living in them don’t own a car, and ride a fixie instead. (And then have to rely on subsidized grossly INEFFICIENT “public transit”)
Anything…except living where and in a manner in which they can be self-sufficient and maintain a purely local economy….which is truly the only way we’d ever be “energy independent” without having to bomb half the world; and where people would once again have autonomy and control over their own turf.
[What does the above have to do with your comment? I don’t know! :D]
How many “MPG” does algore’s private jet get?
I also remember, back when he was running against the Shrub, see an aerial photo of his ‘compound’ and comparing it with W’s ‘home.’
Not the the Shrub is any kind of role model, just pointing out another example of the hypocrisy.
Don’t forget Gore’s six mansions too- but hey, ya need some room to move around when yer busy inventing da internet! 😉
That’s ‘Interweb,’ don’t you know?
And he needs a lot of extra room for his ego.
people just want to tell everyone else how to live. One of the root cause problems for humanity. Fix that and the world will be a much better place.
I have no problem telling people how I think they should live (as anyone who reads my posts can see). But I won’t try to force them. I do believe in God, but I’m not Him.
Well-said.
I have firm opinions, also. But they are not binding on anyone else. Even if I had it in my power. The only non-negotiable for me is the NAP. Leave other people alone – and expect the same courtesy in return.
If it were abided by, the Earth would be a paradise.
L’enfer c’est les autres…..
>>>”I have no problem telling people how I think they should live (as anyone who reads my posts can see). But I won’t try to force them. I do believe in God, but I’m not Him.”<<<
Libertarianism in a nutshell!
Excellent!
That was pretty much the whole premise of the Founders of the US. They realized that God Himself put few constraints on the average man which deserved the use of force. What constraints He did place on men, were mainly on His covenant people; and the consequences for transgressing many of them, was merely to reap the fruits of what one sowed; and to lose favor with God.
This is what they meant by inalienable rights- those which God gave to men by not hindering nor punishing them, whether by divine intervention or by commanding society to intervene.
What REALLY powers electric cars? COAL!!!!
Not for long if O-bomb- has his way.
If you live in Illinois… That would be Nuclear. Not coal.
The misinformation on this blog is astounding.
It reads more like a cry fest of complaining than any real facts being mentioned. Most are media talking points that are just not true.
Danny,
Having worked in the power field (IT division, monitoring, eastern seaboard – yes, all of it):
Nuclear doesn’t work well.
It’s reliable, unlike solar and wind – but cannot change to meet demands as they change during the day.
There are two spikes in demand for 5 days of every week: Morning, and Dinner time. I use the general terms, because it’s from like 5 AM until almost 9 AM; then again from about 3 PM to 7 or 8 or 9 PM…. Changeable by day, IE, not specific, varies every day. Sometimes it’s a clear spike, sometimes it’s a gentle up-and-down wave form. No prediciting it, EXCEPT that (a) it happens, and (b) it’s worse before a holiday.
Bear in mind, this is not JUST household current. It includes also mass transit (BART, for example), and reflected power plants from Atlantic Nuclear Power Plant in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, to Niagara Falls hydroelectric, to the generators in PA, West Virginia, Kentucky… Too long ago to remember all the plants, but Wikipedia should give you a list; they were ALL monitored by the company.
Only fossil fuels could spin up or down as needed. Nuclear takes HOURS to ramp up – and then hours to ramp back down. Maybe the newer light water designs would be better, but HEY! WE CAN’T BUILD ANY!!! courtesy of your beloved government’s regulations.
You may like being owned, but MEN do not.
So whatever you might SEE in Illinois, COAL and NATURAL GAS are still used to power the electric car. Not because of any conspiracy, either, but because the alternatives ARE NOT VIABLE. Just can’t handle the load.
Now, if we were to break things into assorted sub-grids, we could do a LOT with nuclear power, to limit the need for fossil fuels. Power each city with a nuke-based grid! Can’t you just IMAGINE the fallout from that (pun intended)? AFTER you break the law, AND enforce the safety regulations, AND throw out / imprison / kill the Federales… The populace will, if you’re lucky, ride you out on a rail, chanting in zombie-trance, “NO MORE NUKES…. NO MORE NUKES…”
There’s been an INTENTIONAL enstupidation of the people (I believe that’s a mockery of Spanish), an intentional fear-mongering and dumbing down.
ALL IN THE NAME OF HOW SOCIETY SHOULD DEVELOP ACCORDING TO PYSHCOPATHS LIKE YOU.
See, Eric et al, they’d like to educate you, debate, help you grow up.
I see a psychopath.
I see evil.
I believe in killing evil….
It’s not murder when they’re just a bunch of cells, right? Just like abortion, it’s only a bunch of cells… Even in partial-birth, or the planned-for infanticide-abortion….
Let’s see, at your apparrent age, it’d be, what… About 79th trimester abortion?
You need to think these things out, young one.
There is one major fact that proves this entire argument false:
Your using a company Porsche built the Nazi Tiger Tank that was used to KILL thousands of Americans, as an phony example of free-economics. Blaming an American made manufacture as “Authoritarian” … Without even realizing that (and just read the dialogue your typing) you yourselves are being not only Authoritarian in your perspective, but purposely telling lies to prove your point.
Nothing get’s more Authoritarian than that.
Practice what you preach!
Hey Danny Deadwire – given your spelling and grammar (or lack thereof) you seem to be a product of the authoritarian Government Indoctrination Centers.
No one here is praising Porsche, unless it is for being slightly less of a menace than Tesla. If we throw them both in the woods, will you follow them? Please?
Another false assumption and more lies.
I actually was home-schooled when I was a child. .. These days I work with a major international engineering association coordinating Civic App Development with Google and Motorola.
I’m a fan of Elon Musk. So I defend his cars. … I am all about the technology being used to enhance humanity.
Stop being such a suck in the past ass-hats!
Everyone here sounds like a bunch of cry-babies …. Things really aren’t as bad as you guys are bitching and moaning about.
Get over it and do something productive for a change!
How does it “enhance humanity” to force working people to hand over their hard-earned money so that it can be awarded as a bribe to very affluent people (who else can afford a car with a base price approaching $70k?) who need no one’s “help” to buy a brand-new car… to encourage them to buy the failed/not-functionally-or-economically-viable product of a billionaire rent-seeker’s imagination?
Do you know what the proper role of government (if any) is, Clover? It is protecting everyone’s equal right to not have violence done to them. And not one thing more.
Anything that entails aggressive violence, whether done by you or me as individuals or under the auspices of “government” is morally indefensible.
But, like all authoritarian collectivists, you believe you have the right to do violence to others (or have it done on your behalf) in order to further goals you deem worthy. If your victims disagree, well – too bad. They’re not as enlightened – as “progressive” and “forward thinking” as people such as yourself.
It’s good for humanity because authority and experts told Danny it was. The people on TV said so too.
People are manipulated emotionally and socially into believing certain things. The first is in authority and experts. Experts give authority the reasons to do the things they want to do. Experts are well paid. I will probably never make as much as Paul Krugman or James Hansen or many other experts at Fed and elsewhere working in the productive economy. Never mind that I return much better value to humanity than Krugman, Hansen, or any of the rest will, but I don’t serve masters’ interests as well and that’s where the money is.
Of course they still make a lot on me, but I don’t help them keep the population under their thumb. The well paid experts do because people like Danny believe them and gives political power the justification and consent to do as it wants.
Look at what the best paid people do in this country. It’s those that operate the financial scams, those that are in government, those experts which get the people to go along, and the athletes and other entertainers that keep the population pacified and distracted.
You know, Brent, the amazing thing is: The “eggspurts” can completely contradict whatever it is that they said yesterday- 180* diametrically opposite- and instead of that making people realize just how wrong the eggspurts often are, they don’t even seem to take notice or care- they just accept the new “findings”.
In with the new…out with the old. “That was YESTERDAY! TODAY we’re more enlightened/have better technology/these guys are the latest & greatest….”
So they tell those who will listen that eggs and butter and salt are bad for you, for the last 35 years….and now they do a 180, and suddenly everyone who believed them all these years, now believes the opposite.
Do they even question how the whole “scientific community”, gov’t food Nazis; academia, could all be so wrong and all have held the same wrong conclusions without a word of dissent, over the last 35 years and tens of thousands of “studies” all supposedly proving the same things?
No. Just as they don’t question now, how those same people could all suddenly all-at-once just do a 180, and now they’re all saying the very opposite of what they’d been preaching for the last 35 years.
Proof that they will literally believe anything.
While the real truth is usually somewhere between the two ends of the compass arrow.
So now they’re starting to say that animal fat isn’t bad for you…. Hmmm…yeah…my, my- after the switch to hydrogenated veggie erls helped to drive all the small independent food co.s out of business, and let the multi-nationals take over….now, just conveniently [and purely coincidentally I’m sure 😉 ] I’ll betcha we’re gonna see them switching back to using cheaper lard and other animal fats in their “food” products.
But whatever the eggspurts are saying at the moment, is what the masses will unquestioningly believe. Black yesterday? No, now we see it’s been white all along? No one even bats an eye.
Baaaaaaaa!
It’s no wonder that people like Clover like Obozocare….he’s going to fall through his own asshole any minute now and break his neck!
You’re a Musk fan-boy, you could have just said so, then it would have been clear you’re irrational.
Yes, we are a bunch of cry babies, why don’t we just go along to get along, play the system as it is? It’s this annoying thing called principles Danny. Ever try living by principles instead of feelings? Principles are difficult to live by. Principles make getting things done more difficult. But with feelings, just point a gun at someone and ‘get ‘er done’.
An electric car is a good idea so you have government take money from people and conjure it into existence with some crony billionarie and other corporate cronies. Then you pat yourself on the back for making humanity better.
Want to make humanity better as an engineer? Create something that gives jobs to poor people. Create something that people can use to make a living. Create something that sticks it to the medical cartel and keeps people alive who would otherwise have died under the government’s plans and conventional established medical practice. That’s what I’ve been doing as an engineer. What I’ve created has done far more for humanity than a crony billionaire making electric cars for wealthy people.
Motorola eh?
House Democrats call for investigation of anti-competitive allegations against Motorola Solutions
Jul 16, 2014
Three key House Democrats–Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Diana DeGrette (D-Colo.)–ask U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) John Roth to investigate allegations that Motorola Solutions won multiple contracts for public-safety LMR systems funded with federal grants that were not bid competitively or did not promote interoperability with other vendors.
“We are concerned that the state and local jurisdictions discussed in the McClatchy articles, as well as many other jurisdictions, may have squandered federal grants, provided in part by DHS, as a result of questionable practices by Motorola,” the Democrats’ letter to Roth states. “If the allegations in the McClatchy articles are true, millions of federal tax dollars may have been wasted, and millions more are at risk.
Nice guys.
Google’s “do evil for the NSA needs no comment.
“Your using a company Porsche built the Nazi Tiger Tank that was used to KILL thousands of Americans, as an phony example of free-economics. ”
Er, what?
“Authoritarian in your perspective, but purposely telling lies to prove your point.
Nothing get’s more Authoritarian than that. ”
Um, you really don’t have much grasp on what ‘authoritarian’ means, do you?
OK, all done with this one. No functional brain detected. Too stupid to realize the depths of the stupidity.
Clover,
What Porsche did during WWII or otherwise is of no relevance to the question at issue – viz, whether it’s right for Musk to mulct the taxpaying public to fund his electric Edsel. It’s not.
I tried to explain this concept to you – that if Smith does “x” and “x” is wrong, the fact that Smith did “x” does not make it ok for Jones to also do “x.”
Yet you continue to prattle on about the putative sins of other companies, as if these somehow justify the sins of Tesla.
Authoritarian means: Using force or the threat of it to compel people to submit against their will. You have no right to threaten others – or support threatening others – for any reason, except self defense against aggression.
This is the basis of Libertarian ethics – and it is an ethics diametrically opposed to your ethics of “force rules.”
I’m trying to get you to think. To wake up from a torpor of situational ethics and subjectivism. Of euphemizing violence toward others.
If Tesla’s car is a sound idea, people would freely buy it – without any need for bribes. And he’d have no problem finding investors, either.
But the glaring fact is Tesla does need subsidies; that is – he needs force, applied to unwilling victims – to make his little wagon go.
Ponder that….
When all else fails, bring out the Nazi bogeyman. How is the WW2 record of Porsche relevant to this discussion?
Vehicle engines are inefficient – try around 25% for a production spark-cycle (running on gasoline or natural gas) engine – 30% for a modern turbo-diesel.
OTOH, a combined-cycle natural gas-fired (or running on gasified coal) power-plant can be up to 60% efficient.
Hi Bill,
Agreed on CNG. I’d like to see more of them on the road.
IC engines are relatively inefficient in terms of energy actually converted to motive force. However, the energy itself is fairly inexpensive relative to other sources and – much more important – convenient.
I can refuel the thirstiest “gas pig” car in 5 minutes and be back on the road. An “efficient” electric car takes at least 30-45 minutes on a specialty (high voltage) charger to partially recharge. On standard household current, it takes hours to recharge.
This is simply unacceptable as regards mass market vehicles and until that (among other) liabilities is addressed, electric cars will never be other than what they are: Expensive toys.
I had sold some CNG cars for a client a number of years ago. Seems the only people who bought them were those who had access to free/cheap gov’t fuel; or those who had their own natural gas well and a compressor. They get poorer mileage than the same vehicle in regular gas form.
Once again… NOT TRUE AT ALL.
Just this summer I purchased an EV for about 15k. (not expensive at all)
Sticker price.
No subsidies. … And the machine works GREAT.
Your literally making things up to prove your point. The statements hold no credibility in the real world. Only to people who have your same ideology will it sound like it makes sense. … But in the real world… It just doesn’t hold water as the facts say otherwise.
Times are a’changing!
Which EV would that be, Danny?
There is no new electric car on the market priced anywhere near $15k. The Nissan Leaf’s MSRP is just under $30k. The Volt is over $30k… which “$15k” electric car did you buy?
You continue to evade every specific point I’ve made.
It is wrong to take other people’s money by force – and that is what these subsidies amount to. You believe it’s justified on account of your superior/”innovative” ideas… please.
Comrade Stalin used to say the same.
The Tesla is the rich man’s Zil limousine. Remember Zil? Soviet high officials drove around in them.
Lol. Stalin? That’s so last century. I can see why your still stuck thinking like yester-year.
It was a hybrid ford escape 2008. … And while there was no outright subsidy, I will admit the price was that low most likely because of the Government pumping tons of money into Ford over the last few years.
I get the point your trying to make about cronyism, but I think your missing the reality of the situation. All of HUMANITY engages in being crony. From your mother, to your best friend… and your enemies.. Humans are going to watch out for those closest to them. It was happening at the dawn of time, and will continue to happen as long as humans exist.
The thought that humans can exist without ever turning crony, just isn’t the reality of life. We are hard wired as biological creatures to do so.
It’s a fact of biological life that a creature will protect their own before all others. … That is why it exist.
No matter who is in power, Repub or Demo or Commie or Capital…. It’s going to boil down to the same thing: a biological creature watching out for their own interest
Right. a used car. One that depreciated to half its original MSRP by the time you bough it.
And it’s not “help” that’s at issue, Clover.
It’s the violence. The taking by force.
You want an electric car? Fine. But don’t demand that I pay for it. Or whine that it’s ok to make me pay for it because some other car company is making people pay for some other car.
Are you Clovers ever capable of debating things on a conceptual (and principled) level?
Is everything for you subjective and utilitarian (as defined subjectively by yourselves)?
You know what’s “yester-year,” Clover?
Authoritarian collectivism.
It’s been tried.
Electric cars, too.
More than 100 years ago.
They failed then for the same reasons they’re failures now.
Inferior overall performance (and economy) relative to an IC car.
Only in 1915, the government did not subsidize the Baker Electric.
So it just went away…
Dude. It’s a car. … your not being forced to buy one.
It’s in no way Authoritarian at all.
Your writings are quite delusional.
There is no big evil space guy trying to steal from you. lol
Your literally moaning and groaning about paying less taxes. It makes no real philosophical sense from a Libertarian perspective, other than what everybody else is saying this election season.
It’s just a bunch of complaining with no facts to back it up…. Your just talking out of your ass!
No, but I am being forced to “help” you and yours “buy” them.
Is that a delusion, too?
You’re right there’s no “big evil space guy” stealing from me. It’s people such as yourself doing that. Using the government as your proxy and your shield.
I oppose theft. Period. And so, I oppose “taxation” – because it is theft.
It is the taking by force of someone else’s property.
Or is that also a delusion?
The “good cause” (as you see it) advanced by this theft does not change the essential fact. A theft has occurred. If I beat you up – or threaten to – in order to force you to “help” a cancer-laden homeless person – does that efface the fact that I have forcibly taken your money?
How?
Clearly, you are asleep, operating on never-questioned authoritarian collectivist principles.
Your government schooling shows.
Danny, I vote we change your name to ‘Deadwire’ because clearly there are some loose connections there.
They say doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
Just more proof that politicians are truly psychotic.
“Just more proof that politicians are truly psychotic.” And so are those who vote for them.
>”And so are those who vote for them.”<
Exactly!
“Just this summer I purchased an EV for about 15k. ”
” hybrid ford escape 2008″
Um, electric vehicle? No. Electric assist at best as the primary drive is gas.
Clover’s retarded sibling?
This guy is a typical Clover… the rational disconnect… the inability to reason; to follow a principled argument. To comprehend a concept. The subjectivity and utilitarianism.
The awful thing, though, is that he and those like him are utterly unconscious. They have literally never even entertained the idea that “taxation” is just a euphemism for theft. They have imbibed every straw man argument, every question-begging false premise without even realizing it.
They are utterly convinced they’re sane – and that we’re “kooks.”
‘They are utterly convinced they’re sane – and that we’re “kooks.” ‘
Well, we are abnormal. Thank Thor for that as the normal I see out there is appalling.
Normal is just a setting on the dryer. I’m with MM.
Also, when I first scanned his post, I read “Thank Tor” instead of “Thank Thor.” If anyone here is normal, it ain’t him.
Funny, isn’t it, that they they don’t think it is theft when it supports all of the garbage that they are philosophically in favor of; or programs which redistribute other people’s wealth to them.
I’d bet if the tables were turned… If instead of subsidizing EVs, they were subsidizing 11MPG 4×4 F350’s; if instead of raping homeowners to fund the dumbing-down of their neighbors kids in “public” schools, they subsidizing homeschooling; if instead of funding “tolerance” and “self-esteem” programs, they were funding anti-perversion and humility programs, if they wouldn’t suddenly see things differently?
Kind of like the welfare loafers who love the welfare state, until they inherit some money; or win on a game show or get a job, and suddenly realize where all that “free” money comes from, and in a split second start to realize how unfair it all is!
Let me guess, a used electric scooter?
Modern gasoline engines have a maximum thermal efficiency of about 25% to 30% when used to power a car.
Hi Craig,
Yep.
No one (not me, at any rate) is denying that. Rather, I stress that a gas-fueled car’s overall performance and economy are clearly superior to that of EVs.
Any IC car, no matter how fuel-inefficient – can be easily and quickly refueled in less than 5 minutes. No EV even approaches this, even on a “fast charger.”
Next, external conditions (e.g., heat and cold) only marginally effect an IC engine’s performance/range. But heat and cold dramatically affect the performance/range of an EV. In extreme cold, for example, an EV’s battery may provide only a third of its range under optimal conditions.
The list could go on.
My objection to Tesla – and electric cars generally – is not that people are trying to make them work. It is that they are trying to make them work by forcing other people to subsidize their manufacturer and sale.
Hi Eric,
I did not see a Fisker after using the search. Any chance you will get to try one?
Human and other mammalian digestive systems are around 10% efficient at converting food into energy to keep the body alive.
It’s not bad enough that the goobermint is redistributing our money to subsidize other people’s transportation (just as they do with trains and buses) but to subsidize such a STUPID purchase! I mean, how much gas do you have to use to make a $60K purchase to “save gas” a profitable proposition? Much less, when one considers that after a few years, the batteries will have to be replaced at substantial cost. Even with the subsidy, and even if one saved $100 a month on gas, this would still be a ludicrous purchase, that will NEVER amortize itself- much less put one in the black! Then there’s the resale value. What electric car has ever NOT depreciated to virtually nothing after a few short years?
Even if one didn’t know these things, they should know just by the fact that the gov’t is subsidizing it, it HAS to be a bad deal…’cause ya don’t have to subsidize good deals!
(I wonder when Clover will be taking delivery?)
Exactly.
Tesla has achieved exactly nothing.
His car is no quicker than conventional exotics that cost the same money – but which do not have the extreme (in comparison) functional liabilities.
It makes no sense at all.
Tesla touts two things that are largely irrelevant in an economy car: styling/sex appeal and performance. Sure, it’s nice to have those things. But if they come at high cost, then you’ve rendered the car’s “efficiency” irrelevant.
Which then means the car must be judged on performance. Back to where we were above. Yes, it is quick. But not quicker than conventional exotics. And that quickness must be used sparingly, if you want to be able to drive it any distance before recharge time.
Isn’t that like buying Viagra at $100 a pill, then walking around with a hard-on you’re not allowed to use?
eric, I like the analogy. On the subject of sex, I suppose legalized prostitution will never happen. I contend that most Viagra sold is only sold cause a guy can’t get turned on with what’s available. I’m beginning to think that little piggy girls, the norm instead of the exception, are never going to turn me on.
Maybe more guys would benefit from a pill that made them hallucinate “attractive”.
Yeah!
Part of the problem, I think (lawsee… I’m becoming a sex therapist now!) is that it’s just fucking exhausting to make the woman happy, to get her “in the mood.”
This is rarely, if ever, an issue when dating. The woman – usually – aims to please, just as much as the man tries to impress. But after a few years of marriage, the woman is no longer as impressed and consequently, no longer aims to please.
Both suffer quietly, each of them having invested too much in time/money to throw the whole thing in the woods.
Man, you nailed it, Eric! [Oooo…bad choice of words, considering the subject :D]
When I see what a lot of men who are my junior are married to, I know why I chose to remain single!
When I was young, I’d see some 40 or 50 year-old guy married to the average blob of a woman, and wonder why. I’d think: “Does the brain somehow deteriorate even by that age, so that those ‘things’ look attractive or at least tolerable to them?”.
Now that I’m middle-aged, I see that it doesn’t! Half the girls in their 20’s aren’t even attractive [just on a physical level; not even counting the other aspects!].
Asian women still like to look good and don’t try to be ‘one of the guys’, unlike many of the harridans one sees in ‘Murica.
I probably shouldn’t weigh in on this, those other aspects is where it really hurts. I can best explain it by analogy.
Dating for me has been very much like how a particular large Si Valley corporation tried to recruit me. It’s all about what I can do for them because I should want to work there because they are them. Do I meet the requirements? I should be honored because they have allowed me to compete for the position. A position that demands I greatly alter my life, give up things that mean something to me, take great financial risk, work all the time, all for what really what amounts to nothing much more than I have now, possibly less.
Oh well. po-tee-weet, so it goes.
Yeah, she’s a 5 until she opens her mouth…. 😉
And stays a 3 until you find her “great personality”…
And then you realize, Vegas is cheaper.
:-/
HAhaha! So true, 8Sman! Could you imagine taking Viagra, and then as a result, being so in-guided-missile mode, that you’d start baying even at the pigs one could see in any Walmart?! Darn! Now I’m gonna have nightmares!
What I don’t understand is, if the urge is gone/the tent isn’t fully erecting/one isn’t turned-on by what is in front of their eyes, why would they want to artificially bring on those symptoms, when being free of such would actually be a great freedom? [And for those who truly want those symptoms, and maybe little Willy just won’t cooperate, I’d bet if they got some exercise/physical activity, and watched their diet, they wouldn’t need the Viagra. )
Maybe more guys would benefit from a pill that made them hallucinate “attractive”?
I thought that was called beer.
Looking at that picture of the crashed tesla resting against that crooked sign with the doors standing open with no one around (to take the blame) is emblematic of the whole situation with government cars…….
Welfare moochers are maggots, sure. But it’s hard not to be a maggot in the US in one way or another. Each of us likely commits numerous random acts of maggotry every day, often with no knowledge of it. Every interaction has all kinds of secretly maggoty machinations. In the fifty states there are fifty shades of maggots, which shade are you?
Great Christmas Gift for the little surveillors/future heroes in your life: Playmobil Security Check Point – $190.
Scroll all the way down for Q & A and the reviews…
Q & A
Q: Can I buy separate figures of various skin color to teach racial profiling?
A:
Luckily, with Playmobil™ playsets, all characters from other sets are interchangeable with those of another set. With sets like Liquor Store Robbery and Suicide Bomb Fiasco you can turn your security checkpoint in to a great learning tool for all ages.
Q: Is this the same playset used for transatlantic flights/customs? Does duty free over 3 oz. still get confiscated?
A:
It is close to being the same set. On the “International” version, you get the foreign customs officials. Amazingly there were no forms to fill out, the process is efficient and it actually felt like they wanted you to visit their country.
Great lesson for the kids!
By loosenut on September 9, 2005
I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger’s shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger’s scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said “that’s the worst security ever!”
But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital.
The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillence society.
My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillence System set for Christmas. I’ve heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I’ll get him the Playmobil Abu-Gharib Interogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush).
Not complete without the line….
By Amazon Customer on March 8, 2008
This toy would be a lot more realistic with about 350 people standing in line for an average of an hour. It still makes a nice set with the interrogation room.
No longer available
By bbdd on January 2, 2013
Get it now as soon it will no longer be available. TSA has requested that this product be removed from the market. It was deemed a security risk as it is virtually identical to the actual training material used to train TSA agents.
Serious Security Breach
By W. C. Isbell on February 29, 2008
My family was planning a vacation to Europe, so I purchased this item to teach my twins about what to expect at the airport and hopefully, alleviate some of their anxiety. We also downloaded the actual TSA security checklist from the American Airlines website and then proceeded with our demonstration.
Well, first we had to round up a Barbie and a few Bratz dolls to play the other family members, so that cost us a few extra bucks at the Dollar General and it is aggravating that the manufacturer did not make this product “family-friendly.” Of course, since the playmobil Dad could not remove his shoes or other clothing items, unlike the Barbie, the playmobil security agent became suspicious and after waving her wand wildy a few dozen times, called her supervisor to wisk the Dad into a special body-cavity search room, (which incidentally led to quite an embarrassing and interesting discussion with my twin daughters about personal hygiene and a slight adjustment to the rules we had them memorize about touching by strangers).
But worst of all, since the suitcase did not actually open, the baggage inspector made a call to the FBI and ATF bomb squads which then segregated the family’s suitcase (which btw was the only suitcase they provided for our educational family experience) and according to the advanced TSA regulations, had to blow it up, (since they could not otherwise mutilate the luggage, break off the locks and put one of those nice little advisory stickers on it), which we had to simulate out in the backyard with a few M-80s and other fireworks.
The girls started crying. They became so hysterical by the whole experience that we could not even get them in the car when the time came to actually take our trip, and so we had to cancel the whole thing at the last minute, losing over $7,000 in airfare and hotel charges that we could not recoup do to the last minute cancellations.
We’ve now spent an additional $3,000 to pay for the girls therapy and medication over the past year since this incident occurred, and the psychologists have told us that this will affect them for life, so much for their college fund and our retirement. Then, to top it all off, when we tried to use the playmobil phone to call the company to ask for reimbursement, as you might expect, of course the damn thing didn’t even work; neither did our efforts to e-mail them using the computer screen on the baggage checkpoint; and our real-life efforts to contact them to obtain re-imbursement have also likewise been ignored.
D Washers 4 sale: Assume everything on Craigslist is a scam. The nicer the guy seems, the more you should check things out more extensively. This is the cyberagora after all.
Eric, don’t stop with Musk. He is just a piker in the big game.
In California if you make $31,460.00 a year or less the taxpayers will pay for 30% of your gas & electric utilities (no documentation required), and under a mandate sign you up for to get the 30% they will inspect/ install new insulation, doors, energy efficient windows, energy efficient refrigerator and a new water heater in your own or rented housing for free.
You may also qualify for the CARE program if you or someone in your household participate in any of the following public assistance programs and your household income meets the program income guidelines.
Medicaid/Medi-Cal
Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
CalFresh/SNAP (Food Stamps)
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
Medi-Cal for Families (Healthy Families A&B)
CalWORKs (TANF) or Tribal TANF
National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
Bureau of Indian Affairs General Assistance
Head Start Income Eligible (Tribal Only)
Come & get it at
http://www.pge.com/care
pge.com/fera
http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/saveenergymoney/financialassistance/energysavingsassistanceprogram/index.page
Jesus, Gary.
It’s unbelievable.
We haven’t had a dishwasher for going on four years now. Because we decided we didn’t want to spend $400-up on a new one.
I guess if we were in CA we could just get one for “free.”
Fucking maggots.
Like I say, I go to work every day so other people can live better than me.
I don’t own a single appliance that isn’t at least a dozen years old and some way older than that.
And if you think domestic “redistribution” is bad, take a look at foreign aid! That’s all going to RICH suckers.
Yup.
My newest vehicle is almost 13-years-old….
I can’t say that about cars in an absolute sense… I have one that’s pretty new. but the fleet average age is 19.
I can’t say that about cars in an absolute sense… Just the home appliances. I have one that’s pretty new. but the fleet average age is 19.
If I was renting out a place in CA I’d likely find someone who qualified for the program to rent to. Then the rental property would get upgraded for free!
Of course in cook county IL landlords are compelled to rent to section 8 which means spending time in government training courses, dealing with government paperwork, dealing with government rules… a landlord cannot deny a renter because they are section 8. Even though section 8 people tear up properties as a rule.
Many moons ago I lived in an apartment complex that had section 8. I believe the developer had been compelled by law or some crony deal decades prior. The section 8 buildings were just beat to hell, the section 8 floor in the high rise I was in was just a constant source of problems for the maintenance guys. They hated that floor. I’d like to get into renting properties for some additional income I wouldn’t need if it wasn’t for the fed and taxes… but I can’t see any profit if I lose the section 8 lotto. (I want to move and renting out is better than selling if it wasn’t for this stupid law)
We have a stove, dishwasher and now refrigerator in our kitchen courtesy of Craig’s List. Have no idea how old any of them are, but they all work, and spent less than $400 total for all 3.
When I was a kid, Mom had 2 dishwashers – my sister and I. But then we left for college, only one of my brothers was old enough and he had lots of homework for some reason and not enough time. Since Mom was working, Dad bought a dishwasher with one of her paychecks.
The Cloward–Piven strategy in its full implementation and coming to a nation near you. “Hablamos Español”?
Don’t miss Michelle Obama’s healthy ‘Turn-up for what’ parody of – Turn Down For What hiphop song. It’s D-lishus.
Putin’s wife vs. Obama’s wife
Yoo Ess Ay! Yoo Ess Ay! Hoo Hoo Hoo! Eee Eee Eee! Ahh Ahh Ahh!
uhMeriKan wuhman, get away from me! uhMeriKan wuhman, mama let me be! uhMeriKan wuhman, get back up in yo tree…
I really miss Laura and Nancy….and long for the days of Jackie, Eleanor and Grace…better yet, Martha, Abigail and Dolly!
Who’s that lady? That sexy first lady!
Anna Harrison – William Henry Harrison 1841
Eliza Johnson – Andrew Johnson 1865
Lucy Hayes – Rutherford B. Hayes 1877
Put on your dental dams before you read about the “Tesla D” on these environmentist/progressive websites.
Funny thing about improving a product with these pricks as your customers, is they’re all bleating for Tesla to make him give them the new improvements for free. In their bizarro worldview, they bought a Tesla in good faith, and it’s unfair that new customers get more features than they do.
Model D Details Emerge
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/10/14/tesla-model-d-details-emerge/
Don’t miss the comment section
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/11/3578698/new-tesla-speed-awd-efficient-range-self-drive/
The P85D model ($93,400) gets a 221 horsepower motor in the front and a 470 horsepower motor in the rear. Together they spin out 691 horsepower and propel the 4,900-lb. Model S P85D to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. That’s a full second quicker that the P85S and 2 seconds quicker that the 85D.
It also has a top speed of 155 mph. It comes with an 8 year infinite mile battery and drive unit warranty. Fully optioned, the P85D tops out at just over $138,000
Nanyang Technology University (UK Singapore) develops ultra-fast charging batteries that charge to 70% in only two minutes and last 20 years.
When I am talking with people about electric cars, I generally say the following:
Electric cars will never be more then a niche product for the rich unless the following change.
1 & 2. Range and Refueling: Currently, gas cars can do the following. Most can drive at least 300 miles without having to refuel. When the tank is empty, it takes all of five minutes to completely refuel the vehicle. The weather or climate do not generally effect the range of a gas powered vehicle. You get about the same mileage and performance no matter whether its hot or cold.
Most pure electric cars have a range of under 60 miles or less. They also take hours to refuel. When its cold, the already short range gets even shorter. Electric cars can never be used for a vacation or road trip as it takes too long to refuel. And you never really know how long the charge will hold. Electrics are often touted as commuter cars, what happens when your stuck in heavy traffic in the cold and your charge is running out and your still miles from home?
So until electrics can at least match (or better yet exceed) a gas car in range and can be fueled in under five minutes, it won’t find many buyers. Why would you give up a car that has basically unlimited range for one that has less range then a car with a single tank of gas?
3. Purchase price: Electric cars are more expensive to buy. Generally the price of batteries makes it so the price really can’t come down. Or you have a hybrid, which basically has two systems to turn the wheels, which makes it more expensive. Why would someone buy a Chevy Volt that seats 4 for 40k, when a Chevy Cruze can seat 5 and costs 15k? Plus the fact that most people can’t afford a forty thousand dollar “economy” car even if they wanted the Volt over the Cruze.
This are just some of the basic hurdles electric cars have to overcome, just to MATCH gas powered cars.
To get people out of gas cars, electric cars would have to have better range and be cheaper then a gas car. That is really the only way it would happen. Current technology will not allow that however. So they will fail in a pure marketplace (which we don’t have either).
Maybe if there was a 15k car that could get 600-1000 miles out of single charge they could get a few more to sign on the dotted line (since most would have to only charge weekly then), but the long refueling time just makes electric a huge turnoff to most car buyers.
The problem most electric fan boys have is that most people will not change their “habits” when it comes to operating a car. For most refueling is a once or twice weekly thing, go to the gas station, take five minutes and be done. With an electric, you have to remember to plug in the car every night. If you forget, you don’t have a car for hours! You can’t just run down to the gas station in the morning with a gas can with an electric.
Many drivers (including myself) will not drive timidly to increase range. When you live in an area like mine, driving slowly, is frankly dangerous and stupid. Plus I want to get somewhere in less time, not more. I do not enjoy driving in traffic, in fact, I hate it, so I want it as short as possible. So why would I sit in the right lane on the expressway doing 45?
The crazy thing is, people agree completely with me or the opposite, they think I am off my rocker. I guess thats why why have the problems we have in this country. People running the government think I am off my rocker. Hmmmmmm. The lack of faith in the free choices of individuals over the stupidity of the choices government make for us. Scary when you think about it.
I have a friend who has gotten a Nissan Leaf for commuting to her job. What got her to buy this thing? Oh, all of us electric ratepayers are now paying for her electric for it. Yep, our electric utility hands out free meters and electric for electric car owners (as long as they charge it at night). So in addition to the $7500 she collected at tax time, she gets free fuel at our expense too. So the freebies continue even after purchase. I don’t blame her for that choice, she and her husband are far from being rich. But I get no choice at all. That’s what sucks about it.
My dad even looked into getting one. However when it was pointed out that the range wasn’t long enough to get back and forth to my brother house (one of the reasons for getting it in the first place) it kind of put a damper on it. I don’t see my sister in law wanting him charging his car at their house, and a single charge would only get them halfway back home. He wasn’t too crazy about the location of the plug either (in the middle of the front of the car). He has wanted an electric car for decades, but has never bought one. He can’t be alone when those that would consider it, never do it.
And to be honest, are people happy with gas powered cars?
For the most part, yes, they are happy with gas cars. Its not the 1970’s anymore, and gas cars don’t break down much anymore. If gas cars broke down more, it could have given electric an opening. The reality is that electric cars are not BETTER then gas cars. In fact they are worse. Until they are better (which may not be possible) they will never displace gas.
Never mind that auto industry came to this conclusion a hundred years ago already. Government is always behind the 8 ball aren’t they? Whats next, steam powered cars?
I agree with you concerning the market adequateness of electric cars. Unfortunately, once the government busybodies insert themselves into the market equation all of these concerns become irrelevant (at least to them).
Politicians make most of their decisions by weighing the political consequences, not market ones. This means that once a decision is made into law, it’s the tax victims responsibility to bear the consequences – no matter what additional burdens it may add to said tax victims’ shoulders.
Need to go somewhere right now but your electric car needs to recharge? Tough. You can walk. Or take the bus.
After all, the politicians have a world to save, don’t they? The burdens everyone else has to bear is a drop in the bucket to the burdens the politicians must bear. At least that’s the tripe they always tell us.
“To get people out of gas cars, electric cars would have to have better range and be cheaper then a gas car.”
You’re forgetting how much cheaper (1/3 to 1/4) the variable cost of ‘fuel’ is for electricity vs. diesel/gasoline, even without ‘free’ power.
“Maybe if there was a 15k car that could get 600-1000 miles out of single charge.”
Current gasoline-powered cars don’t offer 600 miles range (maybe a TDi on a pure highway trip), but that doesn’t stop people from buying them.
And I see plenty here advocate for natural gas-powered vehicles, but IIRC the natural-gas powered Civic has a real-world range of about 180 miles per tank.
Hi Bill,
The buy-in cost of electric cars remains a major obstacle to “stand on their own two legs” economic viability. Even the relatively inexpensive EVs (e.g., the Nissan Leaf) cost thousands more than otherwise equivalent vehicles, such that it would take many years of driving to reach the break even point. This, by itself, is a strong incentive to not buy an electric car – if rational considerations are determinative.
Add to this the functional compromises one must accept – “refueling” hassles, limited range under ideal conditions – and it’s very hard to make a case for an EV.
Which is why they need “help” in the form of massive subsidies to get people to “buy” them.
Eric, what is the life expectancy of the batteries in these things? [Not necessarily how long before they’re totally unusable- but to a point where they are no longer practical (as if they ever were practical! :D)]
I’ll bet it’s not more than a couple of years [Maybe that’s why the vehicles are so expensive, too- bercause a battery replacement or two would be covered under warranty, I’d imagine- and then when the warranty is up and the latest battery pack is shot…the vehicle is worthless, and one throws it away…
The last two times I have been in the States, I saw two Teslas on Interstate 15. One was driving outside the City Limits of Las Vegas heading toward LA and the other was half-way between Vegas and LA – also traveling South. Both were attempting to preserve their batteries by traveling 10-15Km slower than the trucks (which are subject to a 55 MPH Limit however not strictly observed).
Tesla has yet to send a car down here for me to test drive. Guess why?
We’re appx. 240 miles from the “hub” where the major automakers have their media fleets for my region. A Tesla might just make it down here on a full charge – if the driver kept it around 55-60 on the highway – that is, about 15 MPH below the PSL on I-81. Even so, it would still be close to depleted by the time he arrived. I’d then have to leave it plugged in for at least half a day (all I have is ordinary household 115V, not the special “super” charger that reduces recharge times to 45 minutes or so).
Once charged, I would have to drive it at Cloverific speeds in order to avoid running out of juice before I could get it back home. If I did a few serious runs in it – as I always do with cars that tout themselves as performance cars – I’d need a flatbed because there are no charger stations out in the woods… .
This car is bizarre.
An “economical” car that costs $60k, at least (pre-subsidy).
A “performance” car whose performance can’t be used more than a couple of times without risk of killing the batteries and leaving you stranded.
Why?
Why?
Why? Because it’s greeeeeeen. And therefore to be worshiped; no questions or quibbles allowed.
Worst E Musk quote: “We will not stop until we see every car on the road is an electric car.”
In June 2011, Musk was awarded the $500,000 Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space Commercialization. Musk received the National Space Society’s Von Braun Trophy in 2008/2009, given for leadership of the most significant achievement in space.
Brief History of Tesla
http://techcrunch.com/gallery/a-brief-history-of-tesla/
Talulah Musk, stepmother of E Musk’s 5 sons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XR9rtLa7QQ
Elon Musk did not start Tesla
The company was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. The company was incorporated in July 2003, but remained in stealth mode until July 2006, when it revealed the Roadster, its first production car
Elon Musk came on board as a financier and launched the first investment round in February 2004. In 2008, during the financial crisis, he assumed control of the company as CEO.
In May 2009, Eberhard sued Musk for libel and slander, among other grounds. The suit was settled out of court four months later.
Only 2,500 models of the two-seat electric sports car were built; it went on sale in limited numbers late in 2008, and production ended late in 2011.
The company’s market capitalization as of this morning ($28 billion) exceeds that of Mitsubishi, the perennially struggling Japanese maker, and those of Suzuki and Isuzu, both of which have withdrawn from the U.S. market altogether.
Tesla is also worth more than Fiat ($7.5 billion), which controls Chrysler but doesn’t yet own it all.
(4) Only six parts on a Tesla Model S need regular replacement
They’re the four tires and the two wiper blades. Oh, and service technicians do check the level of the battery and motor coolant occasionally.
Brake pads? Not so much. With the bulk of its stopping done via regenerative braking–turning the electric motor into a generator to recharge the battery pack–the brakes pads on a Tesla last a very long time.
Without valves, camshafts, connecting rods, a crankshaft, gears, clutches, or any of the other complexities of a car with an engine and a transmission, a battery-electric car needs almost no service. Won’t be the usual jobs for jobs for mechanics, it would appear.
To make automotive history, as the most successful startup in the last 90 years, Tesla must build 780,000 cars.
The company has already beaten Delorean (which built 9,000 cars), Bricklin (2,850), and Tucker (a mere 51) among notable automotive startups of the past half-century.
There’s one other startup carmaker it still has to conquer: Kaiser-Frazer, founded just after World War II by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. In its decade of existence, Kaiser built roughly 770,000 cars (and ended up owning Jeep).
It was December 1924 when Walter P. Chrysler founded the company that carried his name; it was the last auto brand founded from scratch in the U.S. by an entrepreneur that’s still with us.
If Tesla can exceed Kaiser’s total-it will become the highest-production automotive startup in 90 years.
Musk got his start at age 9, writing his own computer games on a Commodore Vic-20. At age 12 he sold the computer code for a video game called Blastar for $500.
He has a BS in Physics from U of Penn, and a BS in Economics from Wharton. He was accepted into the Stanford Applied Physics PhD program in 1995, but was granted a deferment after only 2 days, to continue writing code he had been working on in the summer.
Musk started Zip2, a web software company, with his brother, Kimbal. The company developed and marketed an Internet “city guide” for the newspaper publishing industry.
Musk obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with a company called CitySearch. Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options in 1999. Musk received 7% or $22 million from the sale.
In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company. One year later, the company merged with Confinity, which operated a subsidiary called PayPal.
PayPal and X.com each had a person-to-person email-based payment system. The original intent was to merge the two systems, but it never happened.
Musk moved to officially remove the X.com brand for good. Following this, the board appointed PayPal founder Peter Thiel as interim CEO. PayPal’s early growth was due in large part to a successful viral growth campaign created by Musk. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which $165 million was given to Musk.[39] Before its sale, Musk, the company’s largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal’s shares.
Foundation 20 With Elon Musk
http://foundation.bz/20/
Tesla Co-founder Martin Eberhard working for Volkswagen ERL. He was unceremoniously replaced by marketing, computer code, theoretical science, and marketing guy E Musk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRjuRDtOdpk
Musk had plans for a “Mars Oasis” project in 2001, which would land a miniature experimental greenhouse on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith. He says his long-term goal is to help humanity through SpaceX by creating a true spacefaring civilization.
Musk joined The Giving Pledge in April 2012, offering an ethical commitment to donate the majority of his fortune to philanthropic causes.
The problem is that through the schools and the media people now believe anything they consider a good idea needs to be legislated and welfared into existence and use. Tesla Motors fanboys are a particularly obnoxious bunch that falls into that category. This is why we get tax breaks for luxury cars and corporate welfare to build them.
My TMotors rant usually includes why can’t I have a government loan/grant to have my own car company? I know more about cars, design, product development, manufacturing, batteries, etc than Elton Musk did when he started. I knew more when he started too. Quite possibly I still know more and I’ve forgotten a lot. But I know the reason. I don’t have senators’ phone numbers. I don’t have money to bribe er support their campaigns. I don’t know any regulators either.
Now I am fully aware of the corporate welfare arrangements between the bigs and government too. I think Nissan has gotten more than Tesla Motors for the Leaf alone. But it amounts to a childish excuse. Small companies would be better off to cut the corporate welfare across the board. The bigs will always have the upper hand in the crony game.
PS: someone should tell the news media that four electric motors powering cars was done about a century ago.
Absolutely, Brent.
This is why my teeth hurt….
Is Tesla politically connected enough to not have the big three steal their shit and manufacture the same subsidized crap? I think not……but only time will sort that out.