It’s depressing when even Jalopnik – a car site that’s supposed to be into cars – throws a bukakke party for the new Tesla 3.
Which is a car in the same way that this is an airplane:
Elon Musk’s latest four-wheeled exercise in rent-seeking will reportedly be “sold” (fundamentally dishonest word; I’ll explain) for about $35,000 to start. Which is a “deal” – sort of – when compared with the other Tesla, which has a starting price just under $70k.
Jalopnik writes (if it can be described as such):
“The entry-level Tesla Model 3 sedan is coming the month and it’s not just supposed to transform the future of the company, it’s supposed to transform the electric car into (sic) a bit player for the sybaritic and the techno-weirdos into a clean vehicle for the masses….”
The “writer” (sorry, I can’t help myself) then goes on to abuse the “shit talkers” (that’d be me) who “howl all day” about the electric Edsel’s range and recharge issues – which have not been solved.
As per usual, this article – pretty much all the articles – parrot Tesla’s press kit talking points about the car’s potential range, which is “up to” 300 miles. Well, sure. You might also earn “up to” $100,000 a month working from home, using our multi-level marketing scam. Just call 1-800-BULLSHIT and sign up now.
It amazes that so many people still fall for the “up to” schtick.
Especially here.
The editorial laziness, the engineering ignorance – or the bought-and-paid-for shilling is truly spectacular.
Ok, sure. The car might indeed go “up to” 300 miles… if you live in a nice warm place like southern California…. if you drive on mostly flat roads and like a Clover (gimpy acceleration, stick to within a few MPH of the speed limit) and avoid using electrically powered accessories like the headlights and heater and air conditioning.
Then, maybe.
Of course, a $5,000 used Corolla can do all that stuff, too. 
More, actually.
Granted, it’s not sexy. But it’s also not subsidized.
If, however, you live in a place that has hills … or gets cold… or you like to use the heat and headlights… or you drive your $35,000 to start “luxury performance” electric car in an un-Clover manner… well, your mileage will vary.
But that’s just me “shit talking” again.
Because I am shilling for Big Oil, cannot embrace new technology (which is actually very old technology).
Well, except that the Jalopnik flak inadvertently agrees with me. He writes:
“One thing odd tick (sic) we did encounter, however, is what happens to a Tesla battery if you leave it unplugged overnight… on a cold night, you can see a drop of up to 40 miles from where you left it.”
So, you’ve got a $35,000 car that loses 40 miles of range just because you left it sitting. Isn’t that like having an old gas-engined jalopy with a pinhole leak in its gas tank? Check King Soopers Ad and Piggly Wiggly Ad. Except, of course, you didn’t have to spend $35,000 on the leaky jalopy. And even if the tank leaks dry, you can still pour in a 5 gallon jug of gas in about 5 minutes or less.
Which brings me to the Other Thing:
The mass market acceptance of the new Tesla will depend on a whole new rent-seeking project:
The establishment of a network of Tesla “supercharger” fast-charging stations all over the country.
Guess who’s gonna pay for that, too?
And I guess it’s just more “shit-talking” on my part to point out the hilarity of describing as “fast” a recharge time that’s still “about half an hour or so.”
I’m the “shit talker” for boggling at the idea that people are going to be happy about waiting around for half an hour to forty-five minutes to get back on the road again?
We’re talking waits-to-get-going that are 150 times the typical 5 minute refuel with a gas-engined car. And which you’ll have to do more often because the Tesla doesn’t go nearly as far on a full charge as a gas-engined car goes on a full tank. (I’m a car journalist; the car companies send me a new car to test drive each week. But only rarely an electric car. Why? Because they can’t make the 250 mile trip in a day, unless they’re piggybacked down here on a flatbed.)
But then, the Tesla is “clean” and “green.”
Yeah, sure. If you don’t count the elsewhere emissions – including that dread gas, C02 – emanating from the utility plants that generate the electricity the Tesla runs on. Or the earth-rape for the rare metals needed for the cars’ battery packs, not to mention the emissions produced manufacturing them.
The one potentially positive aspect of this story is that if Elon Musk can line up enough rich suckers to buy the “inexpensive” Model 3, it will be slightly harder for him to dig his hands into your pockets and mine (via Uncle) to “help” him – via subsidies – manufacture his crony capitalist conveyances.
But that’s about as likely to happen as the Chevy Volt becoming a best-seller.
And in defense of the Volt, it could at least make a 400 mile road trip without 45 minute pit stops to recharge every 150 miles or so. Because it carried along a portable gas-fired generator (an internal combustion engine), which made it a serviceable car, albeit a grossly overpriced one.
The Tesla 3 has no such lifeline. When it runs out juice, you’ve run out of luck.
Better call Uncle.
But hey – that’s just me “shit talking” again.
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Those who think and move at the speed of law, will never attain max-q and have the velocity and hull integrity to break free of authoritarian gravity and air pressure.
Those who live and breathe atthe speed of life are already unbound. Their only endeavor is to become still freer. And even more self fulfilled.
Ron Paul for me is just ok.
If I were to name a hero, I’d name Mike Valentine.
The intelligence and perseverance to create and fill a market niche. It’s a good feeling, knowing there aren’t any thugs around waiting to waylaying me to provide a fresh kill for the Harris CountyHeroes wolf pack. And a sick nervous terror when the lights and sounds cry alarum that predators be near. But thou detector art beside me, though I navigate the Toll road above the beltway of darkness.
Thy enngineering marvel doth comfort thee and I am less afraid this will be the night of terror when I am pulled aside and all my private secrets will be bludgeoned out of me by the porkcoppers like some deadbeat dad piñata caught by the gleaming sunglasses goons.
All my life and love picked over by grubby little porcine hands and as spoils of candy and that last long look of betrayal in a small girls eye and a bedraggled wives last kiss.
Because always it was true that Big Brother was the true head of my family. I always was an ungood malthinker. But no this is yet again avoided by angels of technology by John Galt heroes like Mike Valentine and so many more doers and makers across this wide round world. And I live to tell you because of makers and doers like Eric Peters.
By comparison:
Tesla 3:
Fuel cost per mile @ 13 cents per KW- Hr
equal 50 KW Hr X .13 = $6.50 for 250 miles
or the equivalent of gas at .65 cents per gallon
No oil changes @ 3000 miles at $40
So direct cost for fuel and (no oil changes) for 12000 miles $312
Gas car at 25 mpg for 12000 miles
480 Gallons of gas at $2.50 equal $1200
4 oil change @ $40 per equal $160
Gas car direct cost for 12000 miles $1360
Tesla 3 direct cost for 12000 miles $312
The Tesla 3 saves over $1000 per year @ 1000 miles per month
As for that range of 250 mile per ‘tank’ with a 30 to 45 minute ‘fill up’ on a trip — relax take a walk, go to the bathroom, have lunch
On our recent trip to Florida from Wisconsin we averaged about 500 miles per day. We took at least 2 rest stops that averaged 45 minutes each (according to our Garmin GPS) it was a good trip, and we arrived relaxed. Had we a been driving a Tesla 3 we would not have noticed the charging times nor would it have slowed the trip down.
Name one $35,000, five passenger car, with 0 to 60 MPH under 6 seconds that can match this —
I’ll wait …..
If the Tesla makes so much sense, Bill, then why does Tesla need multi-level subsidies?
On your math:
* Oil change intervals are no longer every 3,000 miles; more like every 5,000-7,000 miles. In some cases, longer.
* Numerous gas cars average 30-plus MPG; there are several that average close to 40 or better than 40; adjust your math again.
Now, factor the above in context of $35k – to start – for a Tesla vs. $18k or so for something like a nicely equipped Nissan Sentra or similar.
Plus the relative cost to insure, plus the applicable taxes.
It is hard to make any kind of sensible economic case for the Tesla… at least, relative to numerous excellent IC cars that can be purchased for under $20k. I know, I know… the Tesla’s also “quick” …. bear with, I’ll get to that, too.
You write:
“As for that range of 250 mile per ‘tank’ with a 30 to 45 minute ‘fill up’ on a trip — relax take a walk, go to the bathroom, have lunch”
Seriously?
I’m glad you enjoy “relaxing” for 45 minutes every 200 miles… or less. Assuming you can find a “fast” charger. In which case, you’ll be waiting much longer than 45 minutes.
On the 0-60:
Run it to its capability more than a few times and you know as well as I do what happens to the touted range. You have to drive it like a Prius to get the advertised range. And if you don’t, the range plummets. Use the AC, the heater, the lights… and the range decreases some more.
So, you have an expensive, impractical car that you can’t drive fast unless you don’t mind not being able to go very far.
Fine by me – just please keep your hand (and Elon’s) out of my pocket.
“Nicely equipped Nissan Sentra ”
Seriously ?!
That’s it ?
As Car and Driver said here
http://www.caranddriver.com/nissan/sentra
quote
“And the car is still slow. Not in the that charming ‘c’mon little guy’ of vintage Sentras but rather a recalcitrant ‘ugh, I wish I hadn’t asked’ kind of slow”
unquote
and technically I suppose you could squeeze 3 kids in the back seat of the Sentra, too (for five passengers.)
‘nicely equipped’ at $23,000
Oh i forgot, taxes
Yes saving $7500 of my tax money for buying a product is A-OK with me — and no it doesn’t cost you a dime, Eric
$35000 minus 7500 = 27500
Saving $1000 bucks a every 12000 miles closes the gap in purchase price between an “ugh that thing is slow” Sentra in a few short years.
And that is assuming gas doesn’t go above $2.50 — based on past experience
I think we can count on higher prices.
Or if you want to take a trip out west, take that $1000 you saved on gas and oil and rent a car or SUV for the trip.
oh, and finding a charging station
https://www.teslamotors.com/findus#/bounds/49.38,-66.94,25.82,-124.39?search=destination%20charger&name=usa
with many more on the way
“with many more on the way” – courtesy of more crony capitalist rent-seeking.
Why can’t Elon keep his hands out of my pockets, Bill?
Why can’t you?
How about you pay full freight for your miraculous electric car and leave me (and others) out of it?
Then you’d hear no complaints from me. I don’t bitch about people buying 911s and Lamborghinis… because they buy them. They don’t use Uncle as a proxy to mug other people to “help” them buy them.
The Tesla is quicker than a modestly priced gas-engined car like the Sentra.
So?
It’s neither here nor there as regards the fundamental complaint – the subsidies.
Yes, your Tesla is quick momentarily. But drive it hammer down – and the range plummets, which I mentioned before and you haven’t challenged. What you have is the equivalent of a Caddy CTS V6 or similar that has a 5 gallon gas tank that can only be refilled using a syringe.
The Sentra (and cars like it; I only mentioned it as an example) is quick enough to be a useful transportation appliance.
It can be refilled in less than 5 minutes vs. 45 for the Tesla. Goes 400 miles on a tankful.
It costs easily $12k less, doesn’t require massive subsidies, works as well when it’s 10 degrees outside as it does when it’s 90 degrees outside, isn’t gimped by use of accessories…. etc.
The Tesla is a toy. See here: http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/04/09/tale-two-car-companies/
You assert this
“Yes, your Tesla is quick momentarily. But drive it hammer down – and the range plummets, which I mentioned before and you haven’t challenged. ”
Unfortunately you are not correct.
The Tesla it is powered by an electric motor
An electric motor converts emf to mechanical energy
It is highly efficient across its operating speeds.
The amount of KW hours converted to accelerate the car’s mass to 60 mph in 6 seconds or 15 seconds would be essentially the same.
There would probably be a small amount of energy ‘wasted’ as heat due to more current being used but it would be very small and probably un-noticeable in terms of range.
As you probably know gasoline engines are not efficient across their operating rpm range. That is why putting ‘the hammer down’ in a gas car guzzles gasoline.
You still haven’t made the case why someone taking a tax incentive costs you money.
And we haven’t even talked about the massive subsidies to oil companies and car manufacturers.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/29/news/companies/gm-profit-bailout/
“In a new and disturbing report from researchers at the International Monetary Fund, the world’s governments are providing subsidies to the highly profitable oil industry to the tune of an astonishing $5.3 trillion in benefits per year. Another way of looking at just how much the world pays the oil industry that bears responsibility for decimating the Earth’s environment; imagine they receive $10 million per minute. That is $10 million every minute, every day, of every month, of every year. Those mind-boggling entitlements have grown over the past couple of decades and are increasing every year.”
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/06/09/report-shows-oil-industry-benefits-5-3-trillion-subsidies-annually.html
The oil companies are the ones that really have their hands in your pocket, Eric.
Hi Bill,
I test drive new cars each week; been doing it for more than 20 years. I’ve driven every hybrid and most electric cars. If you accelerate rapidly (full throttle 0-60 runs, fast merging, load the motor, etc) the batteries deplete very quickly. In a hybrid, the onboard gas engine can and does replenish the batteries. But EVs have only so much charge – and it goes down as you drive until you can plug in for recharging.
These systems are designed to operate efficiently at light load/steady state (and of course when not moving at all).
If you “floor it” often – or run the car at high speed (over 70) continuously the range goes down, fast. So, you have a performance car that doesn’t perform for very long if you use its performance very much. So what’s the point?
On the money stuff: It’s not merely the $7,500 tax credit. The entire company is a transfer payment con. It exists because of “carbon credits” and massive federal help.
Do you dispute this?
OK, we will just have to take your word for it then on the failure of the laws of physics, mass, acceleration, electric conversion when it comes to electric vehicles (even without a scintilla of fact or data from you)
We bow to your transcendence of the laws of physics.
Do you dispute the car company bail outs and oil subsidies ?
The Tesla Company is a fart in a hurricane by comparison ?
(I used that comparison because I noticed you seem to relate well to scatological references )
I test drive these cars, Bill – I’ve experienced this myself with every single one of them. Push on the gas pedal, energy consumption increases – or does the electric motor run on unicorn farts? Are you asserting that load has no effect on battery life?
That’s an interesting idea.
On the rest: Your argument is… since everyone else is stealing why shouldn’t Tesla?
So, using your own logic – your own morality – I think you should “help” me buy a new BMW7 since I feel “comfortable” in that car…
Eric,
Since it seems to be ok for one to help themselves to other peoples money, I think I could use some help getting a Porche 718 Boxer. While I am at it, I could also use some help with insurance and maintenance as well.
While a Tesla has interesting technology, I do not have the patience to wait 45min. every 200 miles.
eric, that makes me think of last week when a big bimmer passed me only they didn’t use any significant part of its performance so it was nearly a head on. I’m thinking, What a dolt. You have all that power and just barely use enough to keep from getting killed and that was only because the other oncoming car drove into the emergency lane. SIASD’s.
Hi Eight,
It’s the Cloverization of the country; the ascendance of the Safety Cult.
An irony of our times is the cars have never been more powerful/quicker… and the willingness to use them never lower.
I have never disputed – nor defended – the bail out of GM, etc. But that’s not the issue. IC cars work – they make economic sense, they are functionally viable. Electric cars are neither. EVs cannot exist without subsidies and even with them, they still have significant functional limitations.
What oil subsidies? The carrier groups in the Middle East, you mean? That’s for Israel, not oil.
The Saudis’ oil is worthless unless it’s exchanged for money. They need to sell it as much as we need to buy it. And besides, much (most, IIRC) of the oil we import comes from Mexico and Venezuela.
Hate on oil all you like. There is still more power (for less money) locked up in a gallon of regular unleaded than in any other source of motive power available to us.
Ever wonder why Tesla (unlike every real car company) doesn’t send their cars to journalists like me – who would tell the truth?
Look: If someone – Tesla or otherwise – were to build an electric car that could compete functionally with a current mass-market family car like a Corolla or Camry (that is, be capable of going at least 300 miles on a full charge, regardless of outside temperature, use of accessories and driven in an un-Clover manner and which could be recharged in the same amount of time as it takes to refuel a gas engined car) and which could be sold at a profit, without subsidies, I’d clap for it like a seal thrown a sardine.
I really would.
I may not like electric cars personally. But I love choice.
However, I despise collectivism, coercion and cronyism.
.
eric, big oil does get subsidy with a bye on taxes as well as cheap “federal govt.” land for exploration.
At a meeting with Churchill, Stalin and FDR at Tehran Russia had already taken the northern half of Iran contrary to what had been previously agree.
Later on after FDR had demanded and Stalin had removed the troops there.
Once Truman replaced FDR at the post war meetings he reiterated FDR’s position of the US doing whatever it took to secure the middle east oil. It’s been so ever since.
Only a couple idiots like the Shrub and BO could make it nearly impossible but I’d guess that was the Shrub’s administrations(not the Shrub, he was clueless)goal. In creating all sorts of Chaos never-ending war was a sure thing and the military/welfare class has been making out like bandits. Even the huge amount of tanks and an even greater amount of ammo for them was easily taken from the dolts in Iraq they’d been given to and that’s helped create much more fighting.
I reckon the shadow govt. of he US is creating as many factions and supplying them with conventional arms as possible relying on the nuclear option if things get out of hand enough. Surely this is what they desire and we’re already to the point where no citizen dare say shit via the Patriot Act and the NDAA.
eric, let me guess… you’re a dumb redneck typing on a windows 98 PC from the inside of your single-wide trailer parked on the edge of some shitty dairy-farm town, aren’t you?
Hi Crap,
I manage to construct complete sentences and have actually been paid to do so.
How about you?
As regards my doublewide: At least I paid for it myself, without “help” from Uncle.
“OK, we will just have to take your word for it then on the failure of the laws of physics, mass, acceleration, electric conversion when it comes to electric vehicles (even without a scintilla of fact or data from you)”
Bill, you’re the one insisting that the laws of physics don’t apply to the Tesla. You’re also the one who hasn’t even presented any credible anecdotal evidence.
I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never even driven a Tesla, nor seen one except in pics. Eric suffers fools, by allowing you to post your nonsense here, but the real world doesn’t.
Go buy a Tesla and drive it. Be happy. FOAD, while you’re at it.
Thanks, Ed!
GM sent me a Volt last year (only possible because it carries around its own battery charger… a gas burning engine… otherwise, it would have been necessary to flatbed it here). It would go about 30-35 miles on the battery pack before the charge depleted and the gas engine kicked on to feed it charge and keep the car operational.
Now, 30-35 miles’ range might be plenty for people who drive short hops; they might be able to avoid spending any money on gas. But – like the Tesla – the Volt itself costs about $35k. Hard to make the math work.
But, the Tesla’s quick!
Yes, it is. But use the quickness and – whoops! – there goes the range.
And they ask me why I drink…
eric, I can honestly see why somebody would buy a Q80 Camaro and do the quarter in less than 5.5 seconds. Who’d mind standing around for 45 minutes or care how much fuel it used to do it again? I’d need a bit of a break for a shower and a change of clothes.
Aren’t there tax credits associated with the Volt, just like there are with the purchase of a Tesla?
Hi Jeffersonian,
Certainly. The tax credit applies to electric cars generally, not just Tesla.
I’ve reamed the Volt for the same reason. Note that GM can’t give them away, either.
But, GM still builds cars that could stand on their own two feet without massive government (that is, taxpayer) “help.”
Nothing Tesla has ever made could say the same.
Tesla is a crony capitalist Jenga castle. Its existence depends entirely on Uncle – and the media, which practically blows Elon Musk on live TV.
Why?
What is so blowjob-worthy about a $35-$40k car that can go maybe 200 miles (under ideal conditions) and which then requires a minimum of 30-45 minutes hooked up to an electric umbilical before it is capable of going maybe another 200 miles?
I have a 2016 Nissan Sentra press car in the driveway right now. It costs about $22k (with heated leather seats, all power options, a nice stereo) and can go 400 miles regardless of conditions and takes 5 minutes to refuel.
You tell me…
Bill:
I suspect I more time detouring to a gasoline station (10-15 minutes each time) than you waste charging your EV (essentially zero because it charges while sleeping). It would be an interesting exercise to calculate. My car gets refilled twice a week, so that’s 1000-to-1500 minutes per year at the Exxon or Shell station (almost a full day wasted).
If I had an electric car (or a Volt hybrid with EV mode), I could drop my time wasted to zero (0).
Yo! Bill-the-non-s(ci)ence-guy!
Physics.
In the same way that driving an IC car with a lead-foot will reduce your range, driving an electric will as well.
Higher rates of acceleration require energy^2
Higher rates of velocity will result in velocity^3 drag
These apply regardless of power source.
Electric-specific stuff:
Plus, I^2R losses in wires and motor windings
Plus battery capacity is related to discharge-rate C100 vs C20 vs C1
OK, so you save some transmission-losses and the energy-conversion efficiency for electrics are a lot higher, but the energy-density of petro-fuel is intense so that handily overcomes the IC inefficiencies.
Electrics will have their niches, but are not (yet) a magic bullet.
You drive a lot of cars? Interesting.
I think I prefer the drivers from Autoline After Hours.
They are definitely not pro-electric, but they are not hate-electric either. They have both negative and positive things to say about Teslas, Volts, ELRs, and other EVs. That balanced approach to a questionable/uncertain technology is preferable.
Troy,
I don’t hate electric cars. I hate the con. The rent-seeking. The oily crony capitalism of that frog-faced SOB Elon Musk. I hate being milked to “help” rich assholes drive around in high-end cars (whether electric or otherwise).
Crikey!
I’d cheer electric cars – if they were not rolling monuments to crony capitalism.
Pretty much everything is crony capitalism. The crosscountry trains didn’t just magically appear…. or the paved roads for cars…. or the electric lines & phone lines feeding your home. All that stuff was funded by private-public partnerships with companies & government.
You should be hating those inventions just as strongly, but instead you use them and benefit from them w/o realizing you are using items subsidized by government money.
So, your argument is – everyone else is doing it… so why not Tesla?
Your positions are not Libertarian, Troy.
The best transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern Railway, built by James J. Hill, was not a product of crony-capitalism.
The thrust of Eric’s position, by analogy, is that transcontinental railroads are great if they were built and financed as was the Great Northern Railway, whereas transcontinental railroads that were built and financed like the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific were, are rubbish.
My position is that you are a hypocrite to say “EVs are subsidized theft of our money” while you partake of other subsidized inventions (electric, phone, cable or internet lines…. paved roads…. gasoline stations… et cetera). You ought to stand by your principles and stop using those things.
You are blaming me for the existence of things that predate my birth, that I never advocated or approved of. That I have no real choice but to use (e.g., government roads) because (thanks to Uncle) there is no real alternative.
Your are using the existence of previous manifestations of crony capitalism to justify new iterations of it.
Ron Paul would never do such a thing.
Again, for the umpeenth time: IC cars are viable without subsidies. Your electric cars aren’t.
I notice you ignored that your gasoline car is ALSO subsidized. QUOTE: “In a new and disturbing report from researchers at the International Monetary Fund, the world’s governments are providing subsidies to the highly profitable oil industry to the tune of an astonishing $5.3 trillion in benefits per year….. $10 million per minute.”
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/06/09/report-shows-oil-industry-benefits-5-3-trillion-subsidies-annually.html
Troy,
Again, you’re being deliberately disingenuous. Yes, there are subsidies for car manufacturers. But the car itself does not require “help” from Uncle to be economically viable.
A $12k Nissan Versa or similar is superior in every way except speediness to the Tesla. And if speediness is the criteria for Uncle’s “help,” then maybe Uncle can “help” me buy a new 911?
The EV itself does not requite “help” from Uncle to be economically viable either. The Model 3 will sell just fine even without the $7500 tax credits.
Take away the carbon credits, Troy, and the whole Jenga tower collapses.
Tell me… is your real name Elon?
” “In a new and disturbing report from researchers at the International Monetary Fund”
Like I would trust anything published by that bunch of banksters.
The thing is – and I know you (but maybe not Troy) know this – oil prices are kept deliberately high. Supply is purposely restricted. If the spigots were opened all the way, gas would be selling for 50 cents a gallon or less.
Eric,
You are feeding a statist troll! No matter how many facts you offer to prove the position that Tesla Motors can’t survive without crony capitalist measures, the troll will try to straw man an argument or distract you from his previous false statement. Best to leave the fish head to rot.
Hi David,
I know… I know! 🙂
I guess I was intrigued by his claim to be a (cough!) Libertarian!
At least he’s brighter than our King Troll… the original Clover!
But – damn – these Tesla Fanbois are persistent, aren’t they?
Eric,
I don’t think the poster is a Tesla fanboi. My impression is the poster is a statist fanboi. He is justifying the state using funds stolen from productive individuals like you and me to support the immigrant Elon Musk’s feeding at the welfare (calling a spade a spade here) trough. You know just like how statist fanbois justify supporting the Free Shit Army???
On another note, ever notice how statist obfuscate by using double speak? Where Elon Musk and Tesla Motors are concerned, what it boils down to is they are nothing but glorified Welfare Queens.
That’s another form of subsidy that I didn’t cover in my previous post. Many times the wars and political game play aren’t to get cheap extraction contracts for big oil but to deliberately keep oil off the market. This is the Goldfinger concept. If everyone else can’t use theirs what you have is worth more.
Let’s look at how the two forms of cronyism work.
For big oil the government wages war and allows mineral extraction from government managed lands for pennies on the dollar. It does other things along these lines which reduce the costs big oil has to pay. It allows big oil to get its hands on the crude oil for much cheaper than it would be otherwise. Oil and the products there of still sell at market rates. There are many small producers of oil that have to pay market rates for extraction and still sell at a profit. Producers that get no subsidy or breaks from government. Producers that that instead have a larger regulatory burden than big oil when measured in terms of output.
For electric cars many tax breaks (no road tax, deduction for buying one, etc) go to the person who buys the vehicle. There are several business supports for the manufacturer as well and all those are rather common these days except for the selling of credits to other automakers. This allows the manufacturer to cut his margin to the buyer as well.
The cronyism and its effects are different because the goals are different. You could eliminate all the subsidy for big oil and the price at the pump for gasoline would be very little changed. And just think of the tax savings. The electric car without them would fail to sell, the manufacturers wouldn’t be profitable. They would go away.
Bill,
You write: “The amount of KW hours converted to accelerate the car’s mass to 60 mph in 6 seconds or 15 seconds would be essentially the same.”
Even if this is true, you don’t account for distance traveled. Assuming a constant rate of acceleration, a car accelerating from 0-60 in 6 seconds will travel 264 feet; a car accelerating from 0-60 in 15 seconds will travel 660 feet. So, if you “floor” the Tesla regularly it will travel fewer miles on a given amount of energy than if you don’t. In other words, range will plummet.
Jeremy
Jer:
At the end of 15 seconds the 0 to 60 in 6 seconds car goes
264 feet plus 9 seconds at 60 mph (88 fps X 9 seconds =792 feet) or 264 plus 792 equal distance traveled 1056 feet verses 660 feet for the 15 second car
the faster accelerating car is 396 feet further down the road
So then after both cars cruise at 60 mph for 1 hour, you will see that the ‘6 second’ car is still 396 feet ahead of the ’15 second’ car but the total energy used (battery charge) is the same when the ’15 second car’ goes the extra 4.5 seconds to catch up on the 396 foot lead the ‘6 second’ car has
At flat out maximum speed, of course the car will not get as many miles per charge (air drag etc) but then exceeding the speed limit will probably cost you money and time while officer friendly issues the ticket as well.
Bill,
At 60 MPH on the Interstate, you will be traveling at least 10 MPH slower than the flow.
How’s your range at 75-80? With the AC and lights on?
If you have to (or want to) drive like a Clover at 60 on the Interstate, why in the world did you buy a “high performance” electric car?
And it’s utter bullshit that range/battery charge isn’t affected by how quickly you accelerate, the power/performance demanded by your right foot.
There is no free lunch – whether the source of power is internal combustion or an electrical charge.
And, again: Tesla exists only because of government. Take away that prop and it collapses tomorrow. Say what you will about gas-engined cars, there is no denying their economic and functional viability.
The Tesla is an expensive toy.
Well it must be true then since Eric potty mouth has invoked the power of scatology yet again.
Forget mathematics, Jer, animal dung trumps science.
Bill,
It takes energy to overcome inertia; it takes energy to accelerate; it takes more energy to accelerate rapidly rather than less rapidly. It takes energy to overcome wind resistance, which increases as speed increases.
Potty mouth or not (grow up; this is a big boy’s playpen), those are (as Clover styles it) the truth and the facts.
I live in a rural, mountainous area. See what happens to your electric car’s range ascending a 9 percent grade for say 5 miles. Now do that in winter, with the heat and lights on.
Or in summer, with the AC on.
I had a new Prius to test drive recently. The thing is very economical to operate if you drive it in a city-type environment, mostly stop-and-go driving. But take it out on the highway and run it up to 75-80 and the mileage you get is only slightly better than a non-hybrid economy car’s. Because the gas engine is running almost continuously. Because the battery’s charge pisses away muey rapido at high speed.
Similarly, I have no doubt your Tesla’s mileage/range is very good when the road is flat and you drive it like a Clover, keeping the speed to around 60 and avoiding other-than-egg-under-the-pedal acceleration.
eric, for years many large fleet trucks have been limited to 60 mph and a few to 55mph. Up to the point of when the patch shut down last year(year before, November actually), there was a huge congestion of work vehicles and the few non-work vehicles that had to travel the same roads as the oil traffic caused by SIAD and Koch trucks primarily as well as some waterhaulers. Long days in the heat and everybody is ready to do at least the 75 mph speed back to wherever you called home but these trucks on two lane roads would have literally miles of bumper to bumper traffic behind them. Not only was it maddening but dangerous.
Fast forward to just recently when those trucks and many other companies such as Mesilla Valley Transport, Estes and Son, Schwerman and others finally allowed their drivers to go at least 70.
70 mph on the interstate can create large bunches of traffic too but it’s not nearly as dangerous as 60 mph. With a great deal of traffic doing 80 or more, people weren’t prepared for someone in front of a line of traffic in the right hand lane to slam on their brakes for a big rig that was pulled down to 50 on a big hill.
I don’t know whether the big companies insurance provider decided to keep their low rate for low speed or whether the companies decided it wasn’t worth it. The reason for it is irrelevant, it’s just so much safer when everyone travels the approximate same speed regardless of what that speed is.
My point being, it’s still dangerous to have 60 mph traffic out there no matter what is traveling that speed. Access road speed limits are nearly always 55 mph. If you’re not going 70 at the least, use the access road.
Hi Eight,
Yup.
This Clover piddles along at 60 in his “high performance” Tesla, to eke out the range necessary to actually get somewhere before the thing needs a 45 minute recharge.
It’d be funny – except we’re getting the bill.
Bill,
While your distance figures are correct, your analysis is not. In the abstract, it takes the same amount of work to accelerate a mass to a given velocity, regardless of rate (in the real world, it’s not that simple). But, let’s assume that the 6 second car and the 15 second car use exactly the same amount of energy to reach 60 mph. The six second car has travelled 396 feet less than the 15 second car with the same energy usage.
Of course, if you absurdly assume that the 6 second driver will accelerate only once, and then otherwise match the 15 second driver, then the difference in range will be minimal. But the 6 second driver likes to use the much touted performance of the car. He merges onto highways at fun rates of acceleration (say 35 – 75 in 6 seconds, 484 feet travelled). Whereas the slow driver accelerates to 75 in 15 seconds and covers 1210 feet doing so (now the 6 second car has lost 1,122 feet of range compared to the 15 second car). Notice that the effect on distance traveled is greater when comparing rolling starts.
Now, let’s assume that every time the 6 second driver accelerates aggressively compared to the 15 second driver, he loses 600 feet of range. Further, over one charge, he does this 300 times (probably a low guess). Under these assumptions he has lost 34 miles of range compared to the 15 second driver.
Now factor in the real world where aerodynamic drag increases exponentially with increased velocity. The 6 second driver not only accelerates more aggressively, he drives faster overall (say 85-90 in a 75), whereas the 15 second driver maintains the speed limit. Now you’re really losing range. So, Eric is correct in stating that if you use it’s much touted performance, range plummets. Sorry, Eric is right. It really does take more energy (in a given amount of time) to accelerate rapidly. And this fact, reduces the range of any vehicle, including EV’s.
Jeremy
Thanks for helping me swat this Clover, Jeremy!
Hi Eric,
You’re welcome! Note that range is reduced due to aggressive acceleration even if we ignore other confounding factors. It is true that, absent any confounding factors, the work required to accelerate a given mass to a given velocity is the same regardless of the rate of acceleration. But, as I’ve shown, this “law of physics” requires that range be reduced.
Now let’s think about those confounding factors that Bill dismisses as “very small and probably un-noticeable in terms of range”.
The motor and battery produce more heat at higher discharge rates = energy loss.
The cooling system must work harder to maintain operational temperature levels = energy loss.
Tires flex more and run hotter at higher torque loads = energy loss.
Bearings produce more drag at higher loads = energy loss.
This is a short list, off the top of my head, and some factors are more significant than others. Still, I would be surprised if the total loss of efficiency (all confounding factors) due to aggressive acceleration is less than 10%.
Jeremy
Yup!
I wonder (per Ed) whether he has actually driven a Tesla … or a hybrid car. If he has, he’d know that range goes down in proportion to how heavy your right foot is; this is as true for electric cars as it is for IC cars.
Hi Eric,
One more thing. In Bill’s own example, car 6s travels 264 feet while using 540 KW-s and car 18s travels 792 feet while using 540KW-s. So, during acceleration, car 6s has a range efficiency of 0.489 ft/KW-s; car 18s has a range efficiency of 1.467 ft/KW-s.
His own example proves him wrong. Of course, at an equal constant velocity, range efficiency will stabilize (though not immediately because the cooling system will still have to work harder for awhile). But, you can’t just ignore the periodic cycles of extreme inefficiency. Any one of these cycles will be pretty meaningless; a few hundred will really make a difference.
Jeremy
“His own example proves him wrong”
Yes, it does. This asshole is totally full of shit. he can’t do anything but post fallacious verbiage, then claim that he “proved” his bullshit “points” and that nobody else knows what the fuck they’re talking about. The only point he proved is the one on top of his head.
If Bill is reading this: Kiss my ass, Bill, you bullshitter. STFU and let the grownups talk.
Amen, Ed!
I think we put him in the Libertarian Camel Clutch and made him hombel!
Oil companies get corporate welfare. They don’t need corporate welfare to sell their products. We live in a crony capitalist system and Musk is good at it. But at the end of the day Musk can’t sell his products without it while the others are just using it to increase profits and market share over their competition.
Pretty soon Musk will HAVE to sell his cars without corporate welfare, because the Model 3 will not be eligible to get $7500 tax credits. (Only the first 200,000 cars get credits, and Tesla has used almost all of them.)
I don’t expect the lack of credits will see Musk fail, just as Priuses did not stop selling when they no longer received credits
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The difference, Troy, is that Toyota sells profitable IC cars … which subsidize the Prius. Fact.
Tesla, on the other hand, has nothing to fall back on except graft.
But the credits they can sell to other manufacturers don’t go away and that’s where TM makes the money. If sales go down they’ll probably be able to stick around but if selling credits goes away they are dead given their present business model.
Bill, it’s quite simple: Add in the down time for charging, and suddenly that “quick” Tesla isn’t so quick. A few seconds off the 0-60 time hardly makes up for 45 minutes to several hours of charging every two hundred miles (in the real world), and that’s when the car is new. The batteries start losing capacity practically from day one, so how much will that already dismal range and charging time be affected when the car is a few years old?
I suspect you waste more time detouring to a gasoline station (10-15 minutes each time) than Bill wastes charging his EV (essentially zero because it charges while he sleeps). It would be an interesting exercise to calculate. My car gets refilled twice a week, so that’s 1000-to-1500 minutes per year at the Exxon or Shell station (almost a full day wasted).
If I had an electric car (or a Volt hybrid with EV mode), I could drop my time wasted to zero (0).
Troy,
The fill-up time is 5 minutes or less. Factoring in “detouring” time is as disingenuous as not factoring in the time spent searching out on of your “fast” charging stations.
On that: Right now, there are no issues with hooking right up (assuming you can find one) because there are so few EVs out there … but what happens when there are thousands of them? All vying to “hook up” for at least 15-30 minutes?
Imagine the lines at a gas station if each car needed 15-30 minutes to tank up…
GASOLINE: 5 minutes wasted holding the pump handle, plus 5-10 minutes detouring from your usual route (to the station)
ELECTRIC: 0 minutes wasted holding the pump (it charges by itself like a phone/laptop), plus 0 minutes detouring to a station
My car gets refilled twice a week, so that’s 1000-to-1500 minutes per year at the Exxon or Shell station (almost a full day wasted). If I had an electric car (or a Volt hybrid with EV mode), I could drop my time wasted to zero (0).
Troy,
More dishonesty. Sure you can plug in at home. But what about on the road? Just like filling up at a gas station. Only the wait is orders of magnitude longer.
My detour to Sam’s club for pushmoline is about 1 minute each way.
Or less if I need to stop at Lowe’s anyway.
PTB,
I do not know a single person that goes out of their way to purchase gas. Everyone I know stops at a fueling point that is en-route to a destination. Like Sam’s Club, Walmart, Costco or Kroger. Most of all of the above places have fueling capabilities. Hell, even some Target stores do. So since I have to shop at these places purchasing gas is very similar to charging an EV at me home. Sure I can’t fill the truck or car while shopping but like everyone knows, it only takes a few minutes to do so. The troll is being blatantly and intellectually dishonest. I don’t reply to his foul and empty headed mush. He is what he is and there is no changing that fact. Starve his ass.
Agreed, David.
I think I’ve rebutted his claims pretty thoroughly; now he’s just repeating the same stuff over and over… probably hoping he’ll just wear me down.
But I put him in the camel clutch and make him hombel!
I usually pick the best priced gasoline station that I pass on my travels. Sometimes I’ll go a little out of the way for much lower priced gasoline, but then almost always when there’s little traffic and it’s more pleasant to drive.
Actually, driving an electric car like the Tesla aggressively will use a LOT more power and have a significant impact on range. Here is a link with math and everything using 2 example drivers in a Tesla Roadster, one aggressive nad one sedate. Itshows that the aggressive electric vehicle driver uses 10 TIMES the energy that the sedate driver does:
http://www.solarjourneyusa.com/EVdistanceAnalysis5.php
Even on the Tesla motors site itself, you can find this statement: “There is not a single fixed range for any given vehicle or battery. The simple reality is that driving range can and will vary by a large amount depending on how you operate the vehicle and external factors such as wind and elevation change.”
Most charging happens at home. Like your phone or laptop it takes Zero time from your busy schedule (while you sleep). In contrast I am wasting 10-15 minutes detouring to a gasoline station. My neighbors driving Teslas are not wasting that time.
LITHIUM IS NOT RARE. We have tons of the stuff buried in California and Nevada Sierra mountains, and dissolved in the oceans. The nickle used in Priuses and hybrids is also not rare.
BUYERS receive a 7500 refund *if and only if* they owe 7500 to the government. If their tax liability is only 4000, then they only get 4000 back. If 2000 then only 2000 refund. (And Tesla doesn’t get any refund, because it goes directly to the buyer.)
Electric cars are mainly a California/west coast phenomenon (not much interest elsewhere). Most of the CA/OR/WA power comes from natural gas which emits CO2 but not lung-damaging pollutants (carbon monoxide, NOx, particulates). Therefore the electricity is much, much, much cleaner than a gasoline car that Does emit lung-damaging pollutants. Plus because CA is sunny 99% of the time, a large portion of the electricity comes from the wind & solar farms scattered throughout the state (and on Tesla owners homes). i.e. Non-polluting.
MY SUGGESTION:
SET ASIDE THE ANGER….. It’s just a hunk of plastic & metal…. not worth getting high blood pressure over.
Look at it as just “an interesting experiment” like diesel Sedans and hybrid cars. It’s likely all of these technologies will fail (they sell less than 2% of total car sales), and you won’t have to lift a finger to make that happen
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Hi Troy,
“Most charging happens at home” – dances around the fact that you are tied to a charging station for a long time. And this is a major problem for people who need to travel more than the relatively short distances (under ideal conditions) that the Tesla is capable of going before it needs to be recharged.
The tax rebates are merely one of many subsidies – the entire enterprise is fundamentally fraudulent.
You tell me, “set aside the anger.”
Should I be at ease about rich pricks filching my pockets so they can preen around in their electric-exotic toys?
How would you feel about being made to “help” me buy a new 911?
I didn’t realize Zero lost time from my schedule (while I sleep) is a hassle to recharge my car… my laptop… my phone. BUT if for some reason you don’t sleep and need to drive your Tesla 24 hours a day, you CAN visit the local supercharger. It will refill the car in just 20 minutes. (Using superchargers is how two guys were able to drive from LA to New York in just 2 days.)
QUOTE: “How would you feel about being made to “help” me buy a new 911?”
The government always helps subsidize New technologies. It subsidized the very first canals to carry goods from the Great Lakes to the ocean ports. It subsidized the first National Road to St Louis. (That was signed into law by libertarian Thomas Jefferson.) It subsidized the first cross-continent trains. It subsidized the rollout of gasoline stations for the early Model T’s and the paving of the old dirt roads with nice solid asphalt.
Had the government not funded those 4 technologies (ferries, roads, railroads, and indirectly: Model T’s), then the country would be far less advanced.
Oh one more thing:
RARE EARTHS ARE NOT SCARCE. They are just as plentiful as copper. They were rare in the 1700s and 1800s when first discovered (just like plastic was rare back then) but neither rare earths nor plastics are scarce in the modern world.
The “local” supercharger?
There isn’t one. Which means, the 30-45 minute “fast” charge becomes several hours.
You can gabble all you like about gas stations and asphalt/road building projects. It is not relevant to the question. IC cars, as such, are not functionally gimped and their cost is economically viable.
Electric cars are functionally gimped and their high cost (even subsidized) negates whatever “savings” are achieved by not spending money on gas.
Now, maybe the math will change if gas prices go up to $6 a gallon or more. Which I grant is possible. But then we’ll all be broke.
Most people can’t afford either $6 gas or a $35k electric car.
Electric cars are more advanced than the Model T was when it was introduced (the T was a true “gimp”) . Should the government had said, “Well this model T is trash…. let’s not bother paving the roads.” That would have been very shortsighted.
As for math…. it’s actually cheaper to run a gasoline or diesel car than an electric car. For example a Prius or Jetta TDI can go 50 miles on approximately $1.90. An EV costs $2.20 for the same distance.
Troy,
I’d rather the got-damned government said (and better yet, did) nothing!
You claim to be a Libertarian. Well, Libertarians oppose government doing anything more than peacekeeping, protecting people’s rights. They don’t support government direction of the economy or meddling in the economy at all.
Let the market (free people, freely buying and selling) decide what works.
Not Uncle.
Your position is Hamiltonian. The country directed by a “vigorous” central authority, which “promotes” (what those who run the government consider to be) “useful” or “worthwhile” things.
Ron Paul’s views are, of course, very different.
But Rush’s are pretty close to yours.
You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
The Model T wasn’t the reason for “public works” roads. That was the need for “shovel ready” jobs for a bunch of angry, tired, combat-weary GIs.
Eisenhower was the one who ensured those guys had jobs – they built the highways.
Not that there was a need, mind – but all those men knew how to drive. Add it all together: Men who could drive, and had had no reason or ability to spend money. Labor glut, lack of projects/jobs. War fatigue. A-bombs – good at hitting cities, less good at hitting multiple sites.
Solution:
Put the men to work building. Something, anything! Give them comforts to buy, too – like autos. Get them OUT of centralized targets, aka cities.
BTW: At the time of the Model T – there WEREN’T a lot of paved roads, EXCEPT in certain cities. Dirt was the norm for a VERY long time. New England tended to pave a bit, NYC, too. DC, maybe; old cobblestone roads still exist. But from city to city? Not so much. Didn’t need to! The T couldn’t go that far – NO GAS! Needed roads to get the gas out to a station (which hadn’t been built…) Starting to see how things changed?
Model T was 1908.
WW2 – and TV and video – was a LITTLE later. WW1: 1914 – 1918. First tanks introduced. Cars still for the insanely wealthy. Mandatory school introduced to ensure limited labor pool. Horses still a standard means of transportation. Bicycles available.
WW2 – 1939 – 1945 – Lots of mechanization, lots of men under arms, lots of driving….
No chance to spend money.
Military comes home… Post-war boom. Children, material goods, modern conveniences.
The rest I already pointed out.
The WPA was begun in ’35 to give relief from the govt. caused depression. It was disbanded in ’43 due to the war.
I just checked, and you are only 2 miles from a ChaDemo charger which has supercharge/480 volt capability to refill an EV in 20 minutes.
So you were wrong. Just as you were wrong when you said motors are made of rare metals (in reality they are as common as copper). And you were wrong when you said Normal gasoline cars don’t receive subsidies. Your whole article is full of errors (much like listening to Lush Rimbaugh’s error-filled show).
I prefer intelligent people like Ron Paul and Rand Paul that don’t make errors (because they research first).
Troy,
I don’t know what map or resource you are using, but there is no EV charging station anywhere near me (Copper Hill, Va.). Are you now going to tell me I don’t know my own area?
According to the CHAdoMO map there is one in Roanoke, Va. but that isn’t 2 miles from Copper Hill. More like 25 miles give or take.
From the link:
$3 for a full charge by credit card. Stops at 80% charge, but can be made to finish charging by pressing Start again. Charging speed (kW) decreases as battery charge increases.
Doesn’t say how long it will take to charge the battery to 100%.
Never the less, I’ll stick with ICE vehicles. Tried and true tech unlike the EV.
Hi David,
Yes, there is one in Roanoke; about 30 miles from me.
The gas station is 5 minutes away.
And I can fill up in 5 minutes.
Gee. I’d so much rather drive half an hour – and then wait a half an hour (or longer) to recharge my $35,000 Tesla!
Troy,
I said IC cars can exist without subsidies. Electric cars can’t.
Of course EVs can exist without subsidies. Subsidies for Priuses and other hybrids ran-out a long time ago, but they still continue selling. I expect EVs to continue selling too. (In fact by the time the Model 3 is released, the car will no longer be eligible for a 7500 refund…. customers will have to pay full price.)
Wrong again, Troy.
First of all, the Prius is not an electric car. It is a hybrid. Second, as I just mentioned in my last post, Toyota uses the money it makes selling real cars to subsidize the manufacture and sale of the Prius. They still lose money on every one.
Toyota announced in 2004 that “We are now making a profit on the Prius.” So in other words they USED to lose money on the early Priuses (from 1997 to 2004), but with economy of scale they moved past that point. Prius has been profitable every year since 2004 to 2016
And I expect Tesla 3 EVs to continue selling too, even though they will not be getting 7500 tax subsidies.
Troy,
The plug-in Prius has been a major belly flop and the Prius itself would not continue in production were it not for the money earned by the rest of Toyota’s lineup.
And, again – it’s a hybrid. So not gimped by range/recharge issues.
I like intelligent people like Ron Paul and Rand Paul…..yeah me too Troy…..and as soon as Rand Paul shows some intelligence maybe I can get past his Israeli sucking, something I might add, his dad doesn’t and hasn’t done.
If eric is only 2 miles from a charging station why didn’t you give us a link so we’ll know you’re not full of shit? I’m guessing cow patties and pasture are the source of energy 2 miles from eric but I don’t claim that as the undeniable truth.
BTW, some mention was made of Elio trying to pass crash tests but I’d swear it’s been a year or longer since the ever-present email they sent me said they had qualified as a 5 star crash test rating. I’ve taken their eletter since way back when, at least a few years ago.
“I like intelligent people like Ron Paul and Rand Paul”
Intelligence is highly overrated. What is more important is character and integrity, which Ron has and Rand doesn’t seem to.
PtB, I suppose I should have mentioned integrity but Ron is about the only politician I can think of that’s ever had any.
I used to work with a guy who was “very” religious. He said “I’m a holy roller. I go to the church of God”.
Fine, whatever you want to do is fine with me. Then he got on a rant one day and described Jews as being the “chosen People”. I asked if they were the chosen people how come he didn’t convert, after all, his Mexican parents were Catholic through and through. He had no answer.
I asked if he’d been born into a family that ascribed to Judaism, denounced it, and then gone back to it, would he be more Jewish than than someone who’d simply decided Judaism was for them, someone who’d never professed to a religion. Naturally, he simply got silent(and mad I’m sure). Too much to think about and not enough holy rolling.
“PtB, I suppose I should have mentioned integrity but Ron is about the only politician I can think of that’s ever had any. ”
That’s because Ron is not a politician, but a person who actually went into politics in order to serve people.
If gas goes up to $6 per gallon, electricity goes up too. Not to mention who is going to pay to build all the required new electric generating plants which will be necessary if electric cars become the norm (We, the taxpayers, no-doubt), In a world where we are already being constantly hounded to “conserve electricity” and in many places now even being penalized for with higher prices merely using A/C or hot water or heat “at peak times”.
We’re told that the electric grid is already near capacity, so where will all the electricity come from to power these cars if they catch-on? And no doubt, the time will soon come when one is penalized for charging their car “at peak times” (Like during working hours, when everyone’s recharging their car while they work). Sure, it seems cheap now, but isn’t that the way they always rope people in? Make it seem cheap and attractive at first; once it becomes the norm and the alternatives are removed, then it won’t be so cheap, for the car owners, nor those who are forced to subsidize them via taxes and higher electric bills to pay for the needed new infrastructure.
“Had the government not funded those 4 technologies (ferries, roads, railroads, and indirectly: Model T’s), then the country would be far less advanced.”
Maybe, maybe not. We will never know. See Bastiat re: the thing not seen.
I’m reading the Bastiat essay right now. Thank you
I see the first part covers the Broken Window fallacy. I used that to argue against the 2009 Cash for Clunkers boondoggle. By taking working cars off the road, and destroying them, the government was destroying wealth (which damages an economy instead of helping it)
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Hi Troy,
“Had the government not funded those 4 technologies (ferries, roads, railroads, and indirectly: Model T’s), then the country would be far less advanced.”
This belief, while extremely widespread, is not supported by logic or history. It is an example of a correlation/causation fallacy (we have these things, government subsidized them, therefore the government subsidies were necessary). When the government subsidizes anything, it diverts resources toward a politically favored end. It also crowds out free market competition and thus inhibits innovation. As PTB stated, we cannot know what would have happened without the subsidies. But. it is possible, I would argue likely, that different and better solutions would have been created. Now, I can’t prove that, but the statement is every bit as valid as yours.
There were private antecedents to all four of the technologies you list. Internal improvements were boondoggles and failures more often than not. The privately funded Great Northern railway was safer, better built, more efficient and more profitable than it’s tax funded counterparts. So much so that the cronies responded with a law designed to punish the efficiency and innovation of James Hill:
“The federal government responded to the complaints with the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which was supposed to ban rail rate discrimination, and later with the Hepburn Act of 1906 which made it illegal to charge different rates to different customers. What these two federal laws did was to outlaw Hill’s price cutting by forcing railroads to charge everyone the same high rates.21 This was all done in the name of consumer protection, giving it an Orwellian aura.
This new round of government regulation benefited the government-subsidized railroads at Hill’s expense, for he was the most vigorous price cutter. His trade to the Orient was severely damaged since he could no longer legally offer discounts on exports in order to induce American exporters to join with him in entering as foreign markets. He eventually got out of the steamship business altogether, and as a result untold opportunities to export American products abroad were lost forever.” Thomas Dilorenzo
Fulton and Livingston were granted a monopoly on steamboat service which kept rates artificially high and probably delayed innovation toward better steamboats.
Anyway, the point is that statements like yours above are merely conjecture presented as facts. We do not know what would have happened absent the subsidies, and the political favoritism, grants of monopoly, perverse incentives and corruption that necessarily accompany them. But, if you are a libertarian, you should have ample reason to believe that the outcome would likely have been better.
Finally, nearly every aspect of Elon Musk’s enterprises are heavily subsidized. You are probably right that he will survive the expiration of the $7500.00 EV subsidy, but he is supported by billions of dollars worth of other subsidies.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
Jeremy
Jeremy, wow. Everyone should read that article. Without govt. grants and tax exemptions plus flat out subsidy, Musk would be the household work it’s always been, a heavy odor.
State and local gunvermin are far from faultless. But they are much smaller and less powerful than FedGov. Almost all of us would be better off if ‘the United States of America’ would dry up and blow away.
A lion’s share of the blame goes to Dishonest Abe.
Do you know why there’s “not much interest” outside of CA?
Because outside of CA, it sometimes gets cold. Batteries don’t like the cold.
Jeezy peasy…
And, again: I don’t sweat your spending your money to buy one of these electric Edsels. Just keep your hand (and that frog-faced Elon Musk’s hands) out of other people’s pockets, m’kay?
YOU HAVE THAT BACKWARDS. It’s in hot Arizona and California that batteries are dying prematurely (forcing Nissan to buyback Leafs from owners). The Leafs located in cooler climates are showing no degradation.
Hi Troy,
That’s simply untrue. Battery performance is reduced when it gets cold (as opposed to cool). See what happens to the idiotic Leaf’s range when it’s 11 degrees outside (as the other night, here in The Woods) and you’re burning the headlights and running the heater….
The Leaf’s real-world range under best-case conditions is about 70 miles.
Pathetic.
Elvis help you if it’s really cold outside.
I’ve not heard any complaints from colleagues in Minnesota (Minus 20 degrees) about their EVs or Volts. They say the battery is kept warmed when it’s plugged into their homes.
Yeah… well, what happens when it’s unplugged? And outside, in the 11 degree weather? Burning headlights? Heater cranked?
Actually, extreme heat and extreme cold are detrimental to batteries. The cold reduces their run-time/performance/capacity; the heat reduces their overall lifespan. Soi unless one lives where the weather is mild year-round, there are going to be problems. Places where it gets quite hot in the summer and cold in the winter (the majority of the US) are really the worst of both worlds for batteries.
“LITHIUM IS NOT RARE. ” Ok, you little retard. Nobody said it was rare, but that the battery technology uses “rare earth” elements. Lithium and nickel are toxic. That’s the problem with using elements like that in automotive applications.
Go buy a Tesla. Be happy. FOAD while you’re at it.
Thanks for the insult. Nice professionalism.
RARE EARTHS ARE NOT SCARCE.
They were rare in the 1700s and 1800s when first discovered (just like plastic was rare back then) but neither rare earths nor plastics are scarce in the modern world.
THEY ARE AS ABUNDANT AS COPPER.
And lithium and nickel are Not toxic. CADMIUM in NiCad batteries is toxic, but no modern hybrid nor electric car uses NiCad (the 2000 EV1 was the last). They use NiMH and lithium batteries which are both landfill-safe, because they are inert in the ground.
I DON’T WANT A TESLA (now did I ever say I did… please don’t put words in my mouth). My next car will be a 2017 Cruze Diesel…. the new one that get 50 MPG without need for a battery
.
“My next car will be a 2017 Cruze Diesel” – providing Uncle has not killed that off along w/the TDI (and Skytec).
Nah diesels will still be made (though they might now sell well, given their new dirty image). As for TDIs….. I own one and it’s the least reliable car I’ve ever had.
Not surprising. Google Engine Reliability and you see Volkswagen/Audi are both in the bottom 5. If VW quit the U.S. market I would not cry. Just as I did not cry when MG rover and Saab and Suzuki disappeared. IN A FREE MARKET BAD COMPANIES DESERVE TO DISAPPEAR. No bailouts.
VW has demonstrated itself to be a bad company that cannot make a reliable engine.
Yet FedGov bailed out the big Three…
You don’t see the problem here, do you?
“lithium and nickel are Not toxic”
Maybe not in and of themselves. But what about the mining process? From what I’ve seen and heard, it’s not very ‘green’.
So you’re a professional blog commentor yourself? Nice work if you can get it!
Lithium is an alkali metal.
Other Things Troy Says
https://disqus.com/by/troyheagy/
A monotonous mountainous menagerie of meh.
Troy, no doubt you reside in a city and as a city boy you don’t see a car that “must” charge while you’re supposedly not needing it is fine. After all, you can call the cops or other emergency responders if you have a problem.
There’s a problem with that though. Say something happens and time is of the essence to avoid death. Do you really want to depend on “emergency services” or be able to load up in the car and haul ass?
The reason I speak of these things is because I and all other country dwellers know waiting for those emergency responders can mean death.
My point is, even if you own a Tesla and think it’s just dandy you’ll likely change your mind in one of those emergencies when it’s the only car you have. So…..this means you must have some other car, one that will go at any moment.
Your country ancestors had nothing but a horse-and-carriage to deal with emergencies, and they survived just fine (and my Amish neighbors STILL have nothing but carriages and they survive just fine).
IF you really are THAT concerned about it, run a 480 volt line to your house (yes electricians can do that). It will recharge an EV in just 20 minutes, and then you “haul ass” 220 miles to someplace safe.
Great.. spend how much on “480 Volt” service?
Electric cars = cost no object.
Which I kind of object to.
No additional cost over having 240 volt service (480 volt is just two 240 lines tied together in opposite polarity).
Really, Troy?
It’s just going to …. happen? Without an electrician to wire it up?
“It’s just going to …. happen? Without an electrician to wire it up?”
Even if it were, I’m not sure it’s quite that simple in rural areas like you and I (and many others on this blog) live in Eric. Maybe, but somehow I’m doubting it.
Hi Phillip,
Things may have changed, but as recently as about a year ago, I know for a fact that installing a home “quick charge” rig for the Prius plug-in cost about $2,000.
Yes there is a one-time cost for the electric company to install 480 volt, but it’s less than the $$$$ you blew on your laptop. Or television. Or whatever other toys you purchased.
For the standard 240 volt charger, yes some disreputable companies will charge outrageous sums, and some fools have paid the fee. But all you really need is the same 240 volt plug you use for your stove. That’s a $150 electrician visit.
Well, first of all, I “blew” $1,500 on my last computer.
But that’s neither here nor there. I don’t give a hoot what you spend on whatever you’d like to spend it on. I just object to being made to pay taxes to help you pay for it!
” But all you really need is the same 240 volt plug you use for your stove.”
Well if that’s true, I can do that myself. Except I need a larger service entrance, so never mind.
BTW, I don’t have much in the way of ‘toys.’ My laptop, IIRC, is about 5 years old and cost about $500. I don’t own a flat screen TV, although I do have a 22″ flatscreen monitor where we watch Netflix. (don’t have cable or sat TV either)
“No additional cost over having 240 volt service”
Wrong.
Residential electrical service is single phase with two 120 legs and a ground. The highest voltage you can get is 240 on a residential service. To get 480 with two phases, your service must be three phase, 277/480, or a delta wildleg panel. Those are commercial services, prohibited by code in residential applications.
The only way a homeowner can get a 480 outlet is with a transformer. Those are expensive. STFU and FOAD. Go back to Gawker, you fuckin troll.
I am a fuckin electrician and have 480 run to the barn. So what? When someone gets struck by a rattlesnake or has a heart attack or any number of things that could happen, we only have ’20 minutes” to wait when seconds count. That makes me feel a great deal better.
At least your “Amish” neighbors would have the power of prayer when they got snakebit, a tornado was bearing down on them, someone had a heart attack or got crushed working on equipment or any of that other plethora of maladies where seconds count. I don’t want to depend on “prayer”.
I’m always amazed by people like yourself who assume. They assume I’m not an electrician, that I don’t have 480V 3 phase and that I’ll accept an argument of waiting 20 minutes when there is a real emergency.
Emergency: A serious situation or occurrence that happens unexpectedly and demands immediate action.
A condition of urgent need for action or assistance: a state of emergency.
Troy, if someone can afford a Tesla Motors product odds are his federal income tax payment is more than the subsidy, not less.
“Most charging happens at home. Like your phone or laptop”
Does that mean we can plug it into the ‘cigarette lighter’ and charge while we drive?
Apropos of anything else, your “power sources” is way, way wrong. For Washington, my home state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Washington
Natural gas is not “most of the states power”, but not even 10%. Most WA power is hydro.
Oregon is similar, less than 25% is gas, not hydro.
I’ve owned a Prius, I’m a geek/gadget freak, but I just bought a new Audi. This argument only goes anywhere if there’s accurate information.
Including the matter of subsidies, the picture gets waaaay murkier.
It goes way beyond the per-car maniufacturer-specific crony-cash…
The entire petrochemical industry has been and continues to be massively subsidized
in direct and indirect, overt and covert multi-level ways
so to pretend that IC cars are subidy-free is deluded.
A major objective of the non-stop Amerikkkan imperialist warmongering machine with some 1000 global bases is cheap oil – through direct destabilization/regime-change, intimidation, and outright theft.
A proper cradle-to-grave analysis of IC vs electric would necessarily include all of the resource and energy streams in the components, manufacturing, operating, recycling, disposal end, as well as the public-transportation vs private-personal scopes.
American Exceptionalism from the national(istic) down to the egotistical me-first F-You levels has not yet lent itself to a rational intelligent consideration of all the factors. A narrowed version of this appeared in EnergyCrisis1.0 and generated a flurry of activity and partial solutions, but, whew, that was soon dispensed with and we got back to our god-given-Right to blast around lead-footed in overpowered Escalades and jacked up F350s with truck-balls
Roads are free to electric car users. No taxes. The costs of the electric grid are split among all users of electricity reducing distribution costs for electric car owners compared to that of liquid motor fuels. Charging stations are often outright paid for with taxpayer monies.
Only a moron does 3000 mile oil changes with a modern car.
I spend about $30/yr per car changing oil. So if I drove only one that would be about two oil changes. $60. That’s with mobil 1, if I don’t buy it at rebate time.
I haven’t paid more than $2.00/gal in many months.
But if electric cars have a reasonable payback why the tax breaks? They should sell on their own merits. And that’s what it comes down to. If they are so good then they should sell on their own merits. If they sold on their own merits without special considerations at every turn, then the complaint would fall away.
Hi Brent,
This guy is a Clover. Note the usual “if you want to make an omelette” reasoning… the indifference to the coercion and statism.
I am no more a “clover” than Congressman Ron Paul.
Well, here’s to hoping!
But if you defend Musk … the ultimate crony capitalist… I think you might want to check your premises.
“we averaged about 500 miles per day”
That may be fine for you, but some of us have farther to go and time is money.
Phil, don’t buy an electric vehicle then.
I will say that as a Field Engineer for 35 years I drove 35,000 to 40,000 miles per year and I would have been totally comfortable with an electric car with the Tesla 3 specs and range.
Bill,
Whether you’re “comfortable” isn’t the issue. I think I’d be very “comfortable” in a new BMW 7.
Want to “help” me buy one?
No?
The issue is whether Tesla can stand on its two feet, without relying on taxpayer support. If it can’t (and it can’t) then there is something fundamentally wrong with its product.
I agree GM and Chrysler also put their hands in taxpayers’ pockets. But no one disputes that what they sell – IC cars – are themselves economically and functionally viable machines.
The Tesla is neither.
It’s an expensive toy. Something for affluent people to indulge in, for whatever reason – be it style or performance or because they think it’s “green.”
But it makes no sense as an economical way to get around and has numerous serious functional deficits as well.
Of course, so does a Lamborghini Gallardo.
But the government isn’t (yet) subsidizing Lambos for the rich.
eric says:
“It takes energy to overcome inertia; it takes energy to accelerate; it takes more energy to accelerate rapidly rather than less rapidly. It takes energy to overcome wind resistance, which increases as speed increases.”
Well you clearly either forgot your high school physics or never payed attention.
F=MA Force = Mass times Acceleration
It takes more Force to increase the Rate of Acceleration but the energy used is proportional to the rate of acceleration and the time of acceleration for a given end velocity
Energy is a Force for a period of time (like Kilo Watt – Hour)
So in our previous example accelerating to the speed limit of 60 mph in 6 seconds or 18 seconds (I changed this from 15 to 18 to make the math easier for you)
6 second car
90 Kilo watts (of force) times 6 seconds = 540 kilowatt – seconds
18 second car
30 Kilo watts (of force) times 18 seconds = 540 Kilo Watt – seconds
Equal total energy expended
Issac Newton figured this out a long time ago so your ‘argument’ isn’t with me but Newton
You are correct the aerodynamic drag is proportional to to the square of the velocity
Twice as fast equals 4 times the aerodynamic drag.
Bill,
You are asserting that it makes no difference, energy consumption-wise, whether a vehicle is accelerated rapidly or gently; whether it is driven faster or slower. This is steaming bullshit. It makes my teeth ache..
If you really believe it, you must be the type of person who drives like a glaucomic old lady, creeping away from lights at a crawl, squatting in the left lane on highways doing 60 with traffic flying by at 75-80. Maybe you just have no clue because you never use the performance capability of your electric exotic “high performance” car and so the battery pack holds out “long enough” to suit you. But in that case, why do you need a “high-performance” (and high cost) electric car? What good is performance you don’t use?
Or, you’re simply being disingenuous.
The fact is any vehicle, whether powered by gas or electricity, will use more energy to get going quickly as opposed to accelerating very gradually; it will use more energy to get to a higher speed and to maintain that speed.
Your Tesla goes less far on a full charge at 80 MPH than at 60.
Do you deny that?
The battery pack depletes more rapidly if the car is tasked with quick acceleration, repeatedly, as opposed to coasting and gradually building speed.
Do you deny this?
And, again: I don’t care if you want to own a functionally compromised, expensive toy. That’s your right. Assuming it’s your money, of course.
But you are demanding that everyone else be made to subsidize your “purchase,” so that you can motor around in your electric toy at other people’s expense.
And that’s why you’re a Clover!
“You are asserting that it makes no difference, energy consumption-wise, whether a vehicle is accelerated rapidly or gently ;”
Yes, see the above post regarding Isaac Newton’s laws of motion.
“whether it is driven faster or slower. This is steaming bullshit. It makes my teeth ache.”
See above post where I agreed with the fact that aerodynamic drag increases with the square of the velocity. All cars use more energy if driven faster largely because of aerodynamic drag (or your malapropism “wind resistance”) And you should probably see a dentist perhaps there is some connection between your scatological obsession and dental hygiene.
“If you really believe it, you must be the type of person who drives like a glaucomic (sic) old lady, creeping away from lights at a crawl, squatting in the left lane on highways doing 60 with traffic flying by at 75-80.”
Actually I am the type of driver that sets the cruise control for 5 mph over the limit and stays in the right lane except to pass. I also enjoy flying my Cessna 170 trimmed out to cruise 125 mph, truth be told I enjoy the speed.
“The fact is any vehicle, whether powered by gas or electricity, will use more energy to get going quickly as opposed to accelerating very gradually; it will use more energy to get to a higher speed and to maintain that speed.”
Again see above discussion or argue with Newton on this.
“Your Tesla goes less far on a full charge at 80 MPH than at 60.
Do you deny that?”
Never denied that. ALL cars will use more fuel at faster speeds just like my 170 uses about 1.2 gallons of 100 LL more per hour at max cruise verses economy cruise at 2300 rpm, but I enjoy the speed personally.
“And that’s why you’re a Clover!”
And that is why you are a failure, because you can’t win arguments on facts and must resort to bigotry and name calling.
Bill,
I can’t believe I’m even arguing with a guy who thinks the fuel/energy consumption of a car doesn’t go up when it is driven faster/harder.
And who then concedes the very point!
“All cars use more energy if driven faster largely because of aerodynamic drag.”
Round and round we go!
Bottom line, the faster you go, the more fuel you use (gas or electricity). And rapid acceleration uses more fuel than gradual acceleration. Try it and see.
I think the problem here is you drive “gently” (as the signs say in Maryland). You probably rarely drop the hammer – or keep it down. You admit to driving with cruise control on at 5 over the limit, which is well below the speed of most surrounding traffic.
All of which is fine. I don’t criticize people who prefer a gentler/slower pace. The idiocy of the Tesla (one of them) is that it is touted as a “high performing” car, but if you make use of its performance, the already modest range is even less – and then you’re stuck by the side of the road for 45 minutes… if you can find a “supercharger.”
If not, it’s hours.
Why not just drive a four cylinder Camry? It’s not as quick, but then – who cares? You don’t use the capability of the Tesla. Why have it, then?
I think it’s because you like the “green” image of the Tesla; the flash and trendiness of it. Again, fine.
Just not on my nickel. That’s my only objection.
Just as you’d no doubt object if I wheedled the government into proxy-thieving from you and other people to “help” me drive around in a Porsche or BMW 7.
PS: The last thing I am is a bigot. I just hate Clovers.
“And rapid acceleration uses more fuel than gradual acceleration.”
NO, I have never said that
see above physics post
For someone who pretends to be a writer your reading and comprehension skills are quite poor if you think I said that rapid acceleration uses more energy than slow acceleration in an electric car.
Yeah if you open those secondary barrels on the big Holley, it dumps gasoline right into the manifold — bye bye mileage
Not so with and electric motor
But you are just a bigot with a silly axe to grind.
whatever……
Bill,
Your physics post merely corroborates the fact that “fuel” efficiency, you know distance traveled/energy used, must decrease due to rapid acceleration. Therefore, range is reduced. How much is due to how often and how aggressively one accelerates compared to the “slow” driver. See my other posts for more detail.
Jeremy
Let’s put bill in a desolate place, in a vehicle with 1 gallon of gas in the tank, and the nearest gas station being 40 miles away, and see if he drives gingerly or gung-ho!
Betchya he doesn’t try to set a new 0-60 record!
“You probably rarely drop the hammer – or keep it down. You admit to driving with cruise control on at 5 over the limit, which is well below the speed of most surrounding traffic.”
Did you miss the post where I shared that I put on over a million miles before retirement (Oh I forgot that would have required some ‘higher math’ like 35 years times 35,000 to 40,000 miles per year — ok Ill do it for you
1.23 million to 1.4 million miles
I would invite you to come to the upper midwest –Illinois or Wisconsin or Minnesota and push beyond 5 mph over the limit — we can use the money
Bill,
Of what relevance to this discussion is the number or miles you’ve driven?
You’ve conceded that driving faster entails an increase in energy (fuel) used. That’s all I was trying to get across. Whether we’re talking an electric car or a gas-engined car. Drive it faster, use it harder – and you’ll use more fuel/energy (and range goes down).
You then advise me not to “speed” in the upper Midwest. You actually cackle approvingly about ticketing people for this bullshit offense. “We could use the money.”
I think we could use less Cloverism.
But your statement supports my point – that you have a car you either can’t or won’t drive fast.
So why bother?
You operate at a slow pace; fine. This suits for fuel efficiency.
But the Tesla emphasizes quickness. It is part of the “sell.” But what is the purpose of a theoretically quick car that is rarely, if ever, actually driven quickly?
What you have is a $35,000 codpiece. Something that (apparently) makes you feel good, for whatever reason. Which – again – is perfectly fine.
My Trans Am and sport bike make me feel good, too.
But no one “helped” me buy them.
And that’s the issue here.
“You then advise me not to “speed” in the upper Midwest. You actually cackle approvingly about ticketing people for this bullshit offense. “We could use the money.”
To the point, I INVITED you TO speed more that 5 over in this neck of the woods. I don’t because I don’t need the tickets or the hassle. And you will get ticketed around here.
I don’t think I cackled but in fact stupidity can fun/entertaining
I have had more than my share of tickets even with my trusty Cobra RD. I don’t need or want anymore. If I want speed I’ll climb to 3500 MSL and enjoy.
“PS: The last thing I am is a bigot. I just hate (insert racist group of choice)”
yeah, you’re a bigot.
Bill,
You wrote (snarkily):
“We need the money.”
Clearly, you approve of fleecing people at gunpoint over a trumped-up statutory offense that involves no victim and no harm caused to anyone.
That’s a sign of Cloverism – delight in hurting others who’ve not hurt you. Because you don’t like what they’re doing.
And, again – if you drive slowly (i.e., within the dumbed-down law) then you have no need for a car with more performance capability than the Sentra (or similar) I referenced previously.
So why buy a Tesla?
Its chief “sell” is not its efficiency; it is that it’s quick and sexy and (supposedly) “green.”
Well, who cares – about its quickness – if you’re not going to drive it more aggressively than you would a 10-second-to-60 Sentra?
Wouldn’t it be more “green” if it wasted less energy delivering power/performance capability that’s never really used much?
And the Sentra only takes 5 minutes to refuel – and goes 400 miles on a tank. And costs $12-$15k less.
Or, how about the Elio? Less than $7k to buy and 80-plus MPG. It kicks the Tesla up and down the road as efficient, environmentally friendly transportation. But it’s not sexy – so it doesn’t get bukakked by the media the way the Tesla does.
On bigotry: I am “bigoted” toward Clovers – authoritarian collectivists. People who think it’s ok to use force against others to get what they want. If that’s a bad thing, then I embrace it.
Bill,
If one is going to travel (more than 10+ mph) regularly in excess of the PSL then they should get a better RD than a Cobra.
(A good RD wont fix stupidity while driving, but if one is going to get a RD they might as well spend $400+ and get a good one.)
I also do not think one could reasonably make an economic case in favor of buying a Tesla if the goal is to save money. (There might be other reasons for buying a Tesla, but saving money is not one of them.)
So you would have had your needs served driving 150-160 miles per day, 5 days a week for 48 weeks of the year? You must drive very slowly getting your work done. And what a drag, knowing how many miles you’ll drive every day.
His driving must have been done ‘on the clock.’ And still extremely booooring, I agree, 8.
Hi…
It is clear that you (Eric) have an aversion towards electric powered cars, which is fair enough. But I hope you will base your comments on facts and not illusions in the future. But you should also, being a kind of a journalist, give a balanced argument for buying or not buying an electric car.
There are some obvious limitations and one is the milage. If you have a work, where you travel more than 200-250 (winter) miles a day, you should probably not go for a Tesla 3. If you visit your family 600 miles away every week, or once a month, you should probably think one extra time.
So fair enough. If you cannot live with the above described limitaions then keep away from electric powered vehicles.
When that is said you could start describing the car, and how it is to drive electric(provided you have ever driven a Tesla model).
You might talk a little about subsideries, but for fairness you should also mention the historical support to the car industry and the low tax the oil industry has lived on for centuries. And then let it be up to the consumer to chose.
Regarding the power consumed in accelration, it is true that you consume the same amount of energy to accelerate in 6 or 15 sec from 0-60 mph. So unless you stop the car every 5 minutes to accelrate again because it is so funny, you won’t see any difference in battery life….. In other words. During normal use, you don’t see any difference…… But if anyone wants to play, you’re game ;o)…….
And one last thing. I’m living in Norway, which is only mountains and winter. I have no problem driving an electric powered car :o)…… If I go further away, I fly and rent a car (preferably electric powered) where I go…. Saving both time and money ;o)…..
I am not doing it for the climate, but because I love driving electric powered cars. The constant and immediate torque and the silence is just me.
Regards,
P
Hi P,
I have an aversion to government subsidies of crony capitalist make-work projects…not electric cars, per se.
I wish people could read….
Yes, the car industry and oil industry have received subsidies in various forms. But – as EPautos’ regular BrentP notes – both the oil and car industries do not need the subsidies to survive.
Tesla – and all electric cars – do.
The market for them is entirely artificial.
Entirely the result of crony capitalism.
And even heavily subsidized at multiple levels, the Tesa 3 is still a $35,000 (to start) car. It makes as much economic sense as buying a 10,000 square foot McMansion with “plenty of insulation” to “save” on the cost of heating it in winter.
How can anyone smile on “helping” rich people drive around in high-cost toys?
I don’t disagree on taking the subsidaries off. BUT…. Then it should be taken off all at the same time. Not only one.
Can’t say if the car industry and the oil industry could live without being subsidized. They havn’t tried it yet, and I guess that it would have been even more nasty in 2008 without any help.
But take off the sub for all and make it a fair game. Don’t blaim one when it goes for all.
When you say heavily subsidized on multiple levels. How much is the $35000 car being subsidized? or the $70000?
And when you say “It makes as much economic sense as buying a 10,000 square foot McMansion with “plenty of insulation” to “save” on the cost of heating it in winter” as a description on electric cars, it truely sounds like you have an aversion against them.
You should stop mixing the subsidary discussion with the “driving an electric car” discussion.
I can agree on stopping subsidizing the car industry as a whole (including the electric car industry). When that is said, we can start talking about driving the car… And pro’s and con’s indluding whatever sub’s the gov has decided.
P
Hi P,
No doubt, absent the ’08 bailout, GM would have gone bankrupt. But conventional cars are absolutely viable, functionally as well as economically. They do not require subsidies, government “help.” Electric cars cannot survive without it.
There is no disputing this.
Electric cars are not economically viable; they simply cost too much – such that any benefit achieved in terms of saving money on gasoline is washed away by the cost to buy the car itself, as well as the cost (down the road) of replacing the very expensive battery packs.
Electric cars continue to suffer from serious functional limitations that render them inferior to conventional cars as machines, as transport.
Now, if electric cars cost less – or even just slightly more (not subsidized!) than an otherwise comparable conventional car, then maybe they’d make economic (and perhaps even functional) sense … in some situations, such as for the person who only drives short distances, in a usually warm climate.
But $35,000 – to start – for a car that can go maybe go 200 miles (maybe) under ideal conditions and which then needs to be recharged for at least 30-45 minutes (if you can find a “fast” charger) is ridiculous on the face of it.
And, obnoxious.
Remember, this is a $35,000 (to start) car. That is, a car priced comparably to entry-luxury sport sedans such as the BMW 3 and Mercedes C-Class.
Why the hell should the “purchase” of fancy, expensive cars be subsidized by the government? That is, by taxpayers?
Do you like the idea of some rich dick enjoying his heated lather seats and electric toys on your nickel?
I drive a 2002 pick-up truck without leather or seat heaters.
And I paid for the damned thing myself.
That is simply not true. The american carindustry is the heavies susidized carindustry in the world, with $2900 in gov sub for each car that is being produced. Then we havn’t even started looking at all the tax benefits the oil industry have had over the years. That is an average on all cars. The complete american carindustry would collapse (more that it has already done) without that.
But let us put the sub thing aside. The sub is there and there is nothing we can do about it, but mention that the cars get it. Why migle it in at every sentence?
Then you always mix any comment with the range. For those whom range is an issue…. Don’t by an electric car. If not go try if it is something for you, and again. Why mingle it in at every sentence?
So now we can look at the car itself. If you wan’t a BMW with the same spec’s as a Tesla it would be an 335i for the Tesla 3 and the M5 for the Tesla S. And the 550i will not even have a remote chance to keep up with the 3,4sec acceleration of the Tesla S.
Pricewise we are lower on the Tesla compared to the BMW’s, and you still don’t have BMW’s that opens your garage and drive out in front of your door to pick you up in the morning when you call for it…. As the Tesla S does (a feature that probably will be available for the Tesla 3 too).
And at last (again). I live en Norway where it is always cold and it is mountains all over. I use fast chargers once every month. Else it is being charged when it is parked. That’s it. And I never spend more that 20-30 minutes on charging (eating and “refreshing”), while it is only to get me to the destination, and not to recharge completely.
Try driving one and then you can start discussing pro’s and con’s. I have been driving a varatity of different electric cars, from Citroen Zero, Nissan Leaf, e-Golf to Tesla S and Tesla roadster. Compared to similar cars there are two keywords: Fast and Silence.
/P
Hi P,
How, exactly, is the car industry (as distinct from certain brands) subsidized?
If anything, it’s the opposite. Government imposes tremendous add-on costs in the form of “safety” and emissions mandates. Take those away, and cars would be much less expensive.
Electric cars would still be very expensive, absent these mandates. Too expensive to make any sense, economically. In fact, they’d be more expensive – much more so – if all the subsidies (including the “carbon credits”) went away. Your $35k Tesla would likely have to sell for $50k, at least, in order ti recoup what it cost to make it plus make a reasonable profit on the thing.
But the point is, conventional IC cars can stand on their own two feet; they would exist regardless of subsidies – and have existed without them for 100 years. They do not need subsidies.
Electric cars cannot exist without massive subsidies.
They are a fraud. For 100 years now, numerous efforts have been made to build and sell an electric car that makes economic and practical sense. So far, no one has achieved this. The Tesla is very quick – and very expensive. Gimped by range and recharge issues that do not apply to IC cars. And it is only quick briefly. Make use of its performance capability more than occasionally and the range decreases even more.
And range is an issue for most Americans. It’s a big country and we drive long distances, regularly.
You only spend “20-30 minutes” waiting for your electric car to recharge? It takes less than 5 minutes to refuel a conventional IC car. And then you’re good to go for 400-plus miles. You’ll have to stop for another “20-30 minutes” to travel the same distance! That’s an hour of wasted time.
You may not mind Soviet-esque waits, not mind spending all day to get someplace that you could get to in an afternoon in a conventional car.
Which is fine, if that’s what you want.
But – please – keep your hands out of my pockets.
Sorry. Got a zero too much. But anyway. You can find some figures here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/01/us/government-incentives.html?_r=1&#co-generalmotors
Any “add’ons” as safety etc, is equal for all, so keep it out.
For a hundred years they have tried to optimize the gazolin powered car, and this is where we are. Only recently an electric alternative have been tried out for real. All other incentives has been bought by the traditional car industry and closed down. Now that Tesla has hammered the door in, the traditional industry cannot keep it down anymore, and they are all starting now. The development is rapid, and the battery technology pace is doubling the capacity for the half price every 5 years.
In 10-15 years you will see cars that drive 500-1000 miles, and with extension capabilities (small battery boxes you can replace and/or recharge) like you have on your phone.
Having the rest of the car being considerably cheaper than a conventional car (an electric motor is much cheaper and has much higer reliability than a compulsion engine) it is only a matter of time before it will be cheaper than a conventional car.
And at last. Can’t you stop saying that your range drops dramatically when you hit the floor. I accelerate always fast, when I need to accelerate….. And you can’t see it on the range. Only if I stop and start for fun all the time you will see it on the range. And even here I get some of the power back every time I stop, by recharging the batteries.
I don’t waste time, but as I said. I only stop once a month to charge on a public charger…. And it is always when I need to eat anyway, hence I never wait for it to finish. I eat and “refresh”, and unpluck the car when I am finish.
If you sum up all your 5 minutes, when you gazolin addicts need to get your fix, it will be more than the 20-30 minutes I spend a month. I never stop for the 5 minutes while it charge when I don’t use the car (home or at work).
I don’t want my hands in your pockets, like I don’t wan’t your hands in my pockets. So stop the sub, and I will still have my electric car. But what car would you drive if it hadn’t been for the sub’s? A Huyndai? A Tata?
No american carmaker would have survived without subsidiaries.
I have been traveling a lot in the US, and lived there for shorter period. I know that a lot of you are driving more on a daily basis. As I said before. Don’t by an electric powered car if your purpose with it is to drive 400miles a day. But for anyone living and working in a larger city, or as a second car the electric alternative is perfect.
You should try it. The instant torgue and the silence is amazing.
/P
P,
You clearly don’t know much about the history of electric cars.
At the beginning of the 20th century, electrics were very competitive with gas-engined cars and in some ways, superior to them. But then came technological improvements to the gas-engined car and electric cars rapidly became both economically and functional untenable.
That remains true to this day.
There are numerous gas-engined cars available right now that cost half what the least expensive electric car costs – and do not have the functional problems that come with the electric car.
A new (and $17k or so) Toyota Corolla is superior in every functional way, as a conveyance, to the Tesla that starts at $35k (massively subsidized). The Tesla can accelerate faster, that’s all. But isn’t the point of the electric car that it “saves money”? If not, why bother? If it’s just another fast, exotic, luxury-performance car… why should its manufacturer and sale be subsidized? Should the government “help” me buy a new Porsche? It’s also quick! But it makes very poor sense, either economically or functionally (unless you buy it just because you like to drive a fast car).
“No american carmaker would have survived without subsidiaries.”
Bullshit.
They thrived for almost 100 years without any “help.” The bailouts were a recent phenomenon and had nothing to do with the fundamental economic or functional viability of the cars as such.
Your electric Edsel cannot survive without the subsidies.
That is the difference.
PS: I have driven these electrified Edsels, including 100 year old ones such as the 1908 Baker Electric. I test drive cars for a living. And that’s why I know the truth about the functional problems in addition to the economical absurdity of these things.
Electric cars cost carmakers a great deal so they have to increase the price of ICE cars. That shouldn’t be so hard to understand. It’s not as if auto makers simply develop electric cars because they make money on them and fulfill a niche market. They are literally forced to put some electric car on the market to comply with a govt. mandate. Does no one understand supply and DEMAND?
The whole car industry in the US has been subsidized since it was almost outclassed by the japaneese carindustry in the 80’s and 90’s. So subsidizing the car industry is not a new thing (as you could also see in my previous link).
Nevetheless. That is not the point. Let us agree that all susidaries shall be taken away (or at least be equal) for the fairness. Then we can start discussing the cars, which you have avoided by talking about subsidiaries all the time.
Then you have the range issue, which is a cardinal issue for you. But as I wrote. You spend much more time at the gasstation than I do at charging stations, while I refill when I do not use my car. But of cause. If you need to drive 300 miles or more every day, then keep off the electric car (the next 5-10 years). But if you have two cars in the household it will often only be one of them that are being used in that amount.
And then there are all those that does not need more range. Why can’t you just, pretend to be a car journalist, try out the electric cars and write sober reviews for them? Why keep talking about sub’s and range? That can be handled in two sentences, and then you can start writing how it is to drive the cars.
And then you keep comparing with cars that drives with much less comfort instead of comparing them with cars with the same comfort/muscles. It just dosn’t make sense.
Then at last to come back to your point about being competitive. Let me tell you a little bit about the car industry. In the 50’s and 60’s the OPEC countries had a lot of money they needed to invest in offshore companies. That is when they started up buying their way into the carindustry, to be able to control the whole value chain. Despite what you have seen in the US there has been a lot of small inventors that started working on electric cars. All of them has been bought by the conventional car industry and been closed down (not good for the oil price). The difference now is that Tesla has made a market for electric cars that the conventional carmanufactures have been forced into.
The last 100 years there has been used billions and billions of dollars in refining the conventional combustion engine, and the low hanging fruits were taken 30-40 years ago, and since then the steps have been only incremental (look at the milage and the power from then to now…. Not impressive).
On the electric car on the other hand it has not really been attractive untill now when the battery techonoly has started a new era. What we see now is that the capacity is being doubbled for the half price and weight every 5 years. A simple calculation then gives you a range between 1500 and 2000 miles on a charge in 10-15 years from now, for only a few thousand dollars.
The electrical engine (off the shelf) itself will always be cheaper than the much more complex and ineffecient compulsion engine plus gearbox (I am a mechanical engineer, so I love the complexity of a compulsion engine). The amount of components and the weight of the compulsion engine is several times higher than an electric motor with the same power.
So with the rapid development in the battery industry you will see electric cars outprice conventional cars in 10-15 years (without any sub’s).
I am willing to bet a whole lot on that.
I just hope that we can keep buying gazolin 50 years from now, while I have a veteran motorcycle from 1949, which will never be electrified ;o)……
/P
Clover,
You keep dodging the essential point, which is (again) IC cars would exists without the subsidies; they are fundamentally viable as machines and make economic sense.
Electric cars could not exist without subsidies. They are badly gimped by functional impairments and are economically absurd.
On batteries: For the past 100 years, the “breakthrough” was “right around the corner.” That corner seems to never be reached.
P:
The Japanese car industry only exists because it was subsidized. It was by using government that the big three were forced out of Japan. They dominated the Japanese automobile market early on. By the 1930s they were gone.
Which is the nature of the corporate welfare for the IC part of the auto world. It is to give some a competitive advantage over others, not to make the product viable to buyers or to get a politically favored product built.
Now if you really want to see government support for electric car, check out what Nissan got for the Leaf.
“It was by using government that the big three were forced out of Japan. They dominated the Japanese automobile market early on. By the 1930s they were gone. ”
You don’t suppose that had anything to do with why FDR more or less forced Japan to attack ‘us,’ do you?
P – ” What we see now is that the capacity is being doubbled for the half price and weight every 5 years. A simple calculation then gives you a range between 1500 and 2000 miles on a charge in 10-15 years from now, for only a few thousand dollars.”
Err. Bullshit. Extreme bullshit.
Care to show your work?
Please, don’t forget the energy and resource cost involved in extraction, refinement, construction and disposal.
Not sure where “P” gets his history. For decades, at least the 40’s, 50’s and into the 60’s GM ran scared of the fedgov and it’s SEC. They were scared of being run over for being a monopoly. Come the mid 50’s a court ruling for another case gave a green light to GM to do what they’d always wanted, to dominated the car industry.
When asked of Harley Earl after the decision how much stake GM was going to now take of the entire US market he replied “75%”, tongue in cheek. He knew if they took that much the fedgov would revisit via GM that case of monopoly again but they did take a significant amount more of the market and could have taken much more.
The fact is, GM owned the mines, the foundries, the casting and milling companies and everything else they needed and could produce a car much cheaper than any competitor. It certainly wasn’t govt. subsidy that put them on the map.
If Harley Earl hadn’t died or someone of his caliber had taken over after his death, GM wouldn’t have had “union” problems either.
Unions gained their clout via the US congress, that bunch that never turned down a handout. Just ask Jack Abramoff.
The big three being run out of Japan by protectionist practices had nothing to do with FDR. all of it predates FDR. I just don’t remember the dates. One hung on into the 1920s but the others were already gone as I recall. By the 1930s all three had closed up as I recall.
Hi Brent,
It’s hard for me to fault the Japanese, who (in the ’30s) were only doing what the U.S. had done previously. How is the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere any different from the Monroe Doctrine? America annexed by conquest a huge swath of Mexico; waged a genocidal war upon the Indians… how is this any different than what Imperial Japan did to Korea and China?
How would the U.S. have reacted to a foreign power attempting to strangle its lifeline to needed resources such as oil? And I’m not even bringing up what the U.S. did to Japan in the 19th century…
The effrontery of the U.S. is something to behold.
Sometimes, I wonder whether it might not have been a good thing – in terms of serving as a check on the world hegemony of Uncle – if Yamamoto had found the U.S. carriers and sunk them rather than headed back to Japan after sinking the useless battleships at Pearl Harbor.
BrentP – I was looking at it more as motivation for FDR fomenting WW II, not the other way around.
Fedgov with regards to war has always done the younger sibling thing. That is to harass the country it wants to go to war with until they fight back however small. Then fedgov claims it was just there minding its own business when suddenly and for no reason at all an attack came. The american people fall for it every time. And yes FDR used that on Japan.
I wasn’t finding fault, merely indicating fact. Crony capitalism for the auto industry focuses on competitive issues for the IC engine cars. With regard to electric cars it’s social engineering and carving out a tax supported customer base. Two entirely different motivations. The later can’t exist without cronyism while the former would but the shares of the market players would change.
I was decade off on my dates. They passed the law in 1936 so it was in the 1930s the US companies were driven out, not the 1920s. All were gone by 1939. So I was 10 years off.
That’s what I get for going by memory.
BrentP – at least it’s still just ‘part-timers,’ not yet ‘all-timers.’
Damn, it’s a long way to Tipperary but I think it’s further to the end of this no reply button wordpress conversation going on here.
I wanted to reply to Brent on his comment about the US and Japan. One of the main ways it was sold to the public, and you didn’t have to agree, just pay up and they won’t pick on you either, but Japan was beating up China and you know how concerned everybody on the Potomac was about China……now where is that again?
Of course we’ve found a short-cut to never-ending wars now by secretly funding groups who wish to war with some country we want to war with. Then we have two or three or more factions we can supply with weapons so we can use our own military to fight some or all of them. Anyway you look at it, Lockheed-Martin is doing just fine thank you. Of course, it’s NEVER enough.
Any time you see the words “up to” in any ad, stop reading, because anything written after that phrase is meaningless. I am a math professor and the mathematical equivalent of “up to” is “less than or equal to”. And guess what? “Equal to” left town.
One exception to that. When you see “gas may contain ‘up to’ 10% ethanol”, you can probably assume that they’ve put the full 10% ethanol in since that is government fingers in the pie again.
Eric, thanks for the great video at the top of the article. Along the same lines, be sure to search YouTube for “NASSA”. A 15-minute video for the ages!
“He is not ready to give up…especially after pumping nearly a half a million shillings…” It sounds impressive, until you realize that 1 Kenyan shilling is worth less than 1 US penny and he spent less than $5000. It costs more than that just to get a private pilot’s license, even in Kenya.
Where’s the power going to come from?
In SoCal, Teslas are an everyday sight. But they’re still a tiny fraction of a percent of all vehicles. Add in all the Nissan Leafs and Volts, and you’re still at a trivial number.
Has anyone thought how the grid would hold up, if that went to 1% To 5%? The grid that has in past times had to have rolling blackouts, to handle the load? Solar panels have lessened the load a little, but they’re a drop in the bucket compared to the power a car uses. So unless you want a dozen coal and/or nuclear plants nearby, to support them, maybe you shouldn’t be so gung-ho for electric cars.
That’s what I have always said to electric car fanboys. Most local electric utilities can barely keep up with maintenance, let alone even a modest increase in demand. Power plants would only be the first problem, you would need more transmission towers, wire and telephone poles to homes, second meters for electric cars since few homes would even have enough room in existing power panels for a car. Millions of homes still have 30, 40, 60 amp boxes which would never cut it. I don’t even know if the 200 amp boxes that go into new homes would be enough.
Every day I haul through field after field of wind generating farms for electricity. There’s more being installed every day also. I suspect it’s that way everywhere they are viable. It all goes into the grid and lessens the impact of growing power needs.
Take uncle out of the picture and I could sell you “new” vehicles cheap. They might look like old ones but they’d be new in every sense except style and all that bs mandated by the bureaucrats of govt.
The rage these days is crewcab pickups and big SUV’s. Think those old ones couldn’t be sold real cheap if you could find dies to stamp out body metal? Glass is cheap, new windshield in a ’13 Dodge truck is $200 installed with the old one removed.
The company I work for recently had a 550 Dodge get wrecked when a dumbass pulled out in front of it and it mangled the pickup. That monster had a 3′ deep bumper with pipe vices both sides and a huge cow catcher so the airbags never deployed even though it was enough to trash the front of the truck. Just to show what airbag replacement costs are, that truck wasn’t totaled but only because the airbags didn’t deploy. We were all walking around it saying “Shit, those damned air bags never go off when you want them to”. But a friend was driving 15 mph in his new Ford pickup looking at his crops when a deer ran out and slammed into the front. Airbags pop out everywhere and there’s not a dent on the damned truck except for a small spot. Big repair bill since all that interior trim and uber-expensive airbags had to be replaced. What bs.
Not only what you state Tom. The grid is very susceptible to takedown by Stixnet type computer program. When the grid goes down, those electric cars will be so fucking USELESS. Then we can really laugh!! Ha ha ha ha ah ah ha ha!!!
I work in a biomass power plant. We are constantly monitoring power prices and ramp up production when the price of power is high. (It changes every 10 minutes, which is how the grid gets companies to rapidly start producing power when demand is high. I can go from $10 a megawatt to $1200 a megawatt.) In Alberta AESO has a graph that shows projected power demand vs projected supply for the next several years. Projected demand far out paces supply. Of course they never tell you that it’s really the government’s fault. (Investors will not invest in power plants because it is so regulated and political. New Power plants will not be built.) Interestingly, I heard a report on CBC radio that said that the grid in Alberta would simply not be able to handle the power demand if even a significant minority of people started driving electric cars. That is even if they didn’t plug in the car as soon as they got home from work, i.e. in the early evening during peak power demand. Not only do I think driving an electric car is a bad idea for this very reason, I’d encourage anyone who has the means to look at powering their home in an off grid fashion. The technology is getting cheaper and power prices will only go up as power demand outpaces supply. Just my two cents.
Some locales are making living off the grid illegal. Better watch out for that. Best to be on the grid and use the meter to power a koi pond pump! You get a minimal bill with no one the wiser that you are not using the power to the ultimate and if anyone ask then you can say your home is insulated with R30 rock/mineral wool.
P.S. I am heavily considering ripping all the insulation in my house out and installing that stuff. It is water proof, fire resistant (up to 1800 degrees F), sound deadening (great for music studios, loud don’t ya know?) and you can get it in various degrees of R ratings (up to R30).
What gets lost in the hype for this vehicle is that only the first 200,000 people to buy a manufacturer’s zero emission vehicle will get the $7,500 tax rebate. By the time this new Tesla vehicle hits the market they will have sold close to 200,000 units and the tax credits will be gone for most buyers. How quickly will the rats jump ship at that point?
And “sold” is a generous application of language!
Take away the credits and subsidies and every one of these things is a give-away.
With us – taxpayers – making up the shortfall.
Do you know exactly how Tesla is subsidised? (I’m interested – not arrogant)
Isn’t it the research of technology and installation of solarcell that is funded?
Fossil fuel is widely subsidised as well. Would you say that gasstations doesn’t sell gasolin?
Hi Peter,
There are multiple subsidies at various levels, as well as the scam of “carbon credits,” which Tesla is utterly dependent upon.
Fundamentally, the Tesla business model is ridiculous.
Musk is selling expensive, functionally compromised toys.
There is no sound economic reason to buy a Tesla.
So the criteria becomes – well, they are quick and look slick.
One could say the same about a Porsche – yet no one (yet) has had the effrontery to demand “help” from the government to buy a 911.
Oh, but they are “green”! … well, if that’s the criteria, then why is the main push their performance and looks? Aren’t those wasteful things? Does anyone really need to get to 60 in 5 seconds? Isn’t that a luxury? Why are we being taxed to subsidize a luxury-performance purchase by people who are by definition very affluent?
It’s sickening.
Not sure where I read it but didn’t Tesla get dinged by some group who collects car service records report that most if not all the electric motors on the Model S had to be replaced before 60k miles?
Yeah I read that too. So my thinking is that for all the talk about buying these on the secondary market, I just don’t see how much value a used buyer is going to get out of them especially with motor reliability and diminishing battery life issues. Most ICE cars will last a long time if taken care of at least a little bit. I still see old cars not well taken care of driving around that probably came out in the early 80s. Buying a 3 year old AMG Mercedes can be a gamble since an electrical computer component breaks out of warranty and you could be out thousands of dollars. Mechanical machines last a long time. A machine gun from the First World War will run flawlessly with a little bit of care. My three year old iPhone is essentially a throwaway.
Before the engine blew in my 2004 Honda Civic (female driver don’t ya know?), it had 210k on it. Would have lasted longer if the female driving it had checked the oil regularly. So my 1.7L ulev engine lasted 2.4 times longer than the Tesla electric motor. Oh and the car? Well it is still running with a replacement engine for 500 bucks. I bet a replacement EM for the Tesla will be tons more than 500 bucks. Initial outlay for the car new was 11k. 40 mph at 70 on the freeway with the A/C running. 13.1 gallon tank. Refill at 11 gallons (gas light comes on then). So 11 gallons * 40 mph = 440 miles before a fill up. Nah, you can keep your crappy EV. I can buy a ton of gas for the difference in the price.
Eric’s new theme song – to the tune of ‘I’m a Girl Watcher.’
“I’m a Shit Talker.”
Love it!
“Green Prince of Darkness” explains the parlor trick of photovoltaics, the chemical and physics of batteries and the Rare Earth magnets for wind mills and electric vehicles.
“Fracturing the Fossil Fuel Fable” explains Abiogenic Hydrocarbons.
…have you not noticed that any kind of truth telling is now considered…”shit-talking”….? Remember this…(much like we “tin-foil-hat” folks are experiencing today)…there will be a day when the owners of this claptrap are going to be standing by the side of the road…slack-jawed…as their new, green toy refuses to perform any longer, and they will wish they had listened or researched a bit better.
RJO, I could site many examples that range from the time this country wasn’t even a govt. that truth telling was a crime. It has remained so and by all indications will always be so. It’s worse now than it was for 250 years.
Correction….”cite”, knew that didn’t look right.
Ha! Timely article for me, as I just got a call last night from a business associate, who mentioned that he just ordered one of these clown cars! I, being quite ignorant of these cars, other than knowing that they are subsidized commie-mobiles, was asking him some questions which immediately came to mind, like :How much of a range do they have?” Answer: “300 miles!” (Sans “up to”). “How long will the battery last?” (“I don’t know, but my relative has a Prius that’s a few years old, and it’s still doing fine”).
This should be good. I’ll get to see what Eric is writing about, first-hand. (Only I feel bad for my associate, that he drank the Kool-aid, as he is a nice guy -just not the brightest LED on the dashboard).
One theory is that Tesla is very low maintenance. For example I spent a morning a $200 getting my ECU reprogrammed on my gasoline powered car. As all work was always done on time and at the dealer I was surprised that this was not taken care of during normal recommended maintenance. There are a lot of people, including all women, who do not enjoy any routine maintenance tasks including fueling.
Tesla Model S Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
http://www.teslacost.com/
Did ya notice how dude left out some important factors? All because he was lazy? LOL! If he was lazy enough to leave out important stuff, that would translate to his Total Cost of Ownership model being totally skewed. What a piece of junk that posting is.
Again this is what passes for intelligence in today’s environment.
Hi George,
Well, ok… but the purchase price has to be factored in. One can buy a nicely equipped (heated leather seats, nice stereo, every power option, etc.) Nissan Sentra or Corolla for about $22k. This is at least $13k less than the subsidized price of the Tesla 3.
That’s a pile of money to pay to avoid minor routine service – which is all most any new IC will need for at least the first 8-10 years of its life.
Also, one must factor in property tax (where applicable, as in my area). The tax on a car with a retail value of $35k will be much higher than the property tax on the $22k car. Over 8-10 years, this amounts to a lot of money.
Then there is insurance… which is based to a great extent on the potential loss. It will necessarily cost more to insure a $35k than a $22k car.
And isn’t the whole point of this exercise saving money?
How does the Tesla doe that, exactly?
And if it’s other criteria at issue, then the Tesla loses badly on pretty every score, too.
“And isn’t the whole point of this exercise saving money? ”
No, no, no Eric! It’s about saving Mother Gaia.
Point taken!
Actually, these Teslas are totally dependent upon soiftware and electronics for pretty much everything, and you know how computers and electronics age. True, no real maintenance in the traditional sense, but once out of warranty, they’ll be even worse than late-model regular cars, as software bugs and problems crop-up (imagine when the company stops supporting the software or goes out of business?) and as small electronic components and circuit boards fail. It ain’t gonna be pretty. Not to mention the continual decline of the battery. So you avoid things like oil and filter changes now, but how much is it goin to cost you to replace that battery when the car’s range is down to 50 miles (from the normal 100 miles) and the company says the battery is within spec, or the warranty has just expired?
Yes, exactly. When I hear from a new Mercedes owner, there are more computers in y car than in the space shuttle. I hear, cha ching! Don’t keep it out of warranty.
Also, my iPhone is maintenance free until it’s not, at which point the cost of repair is usually nearly as high as buying a new phone. An electric car will be the same thing.
Exactly, Evan. What a job my neighbor had just last month, getting a new computer for his ’99 F350 4×4 7.3 dually diesel!
The way things are going, I expect to see the landscape littered with cars that look perfectly fine, but which are dead and not economically feasible to repair, because of the electronics, very soon.
And those women will NEVER remember to plug (puke) in the car every time they go out to keep the battery up. They’ll shiver in the cold and boil in the heat.
Elon Musk is a 21st century version of a 19th century traveling medicine show charlatan. The big (and disgraceful) difference is that he has the federal government as his shill.
I am 62 years old and I am pleading with my wife to get the hell out of Dodge, give up citizenship and live in a little foreign place I have visited every year for 30 years where the only electric cars are golf carts. You can’t buy happiness but you can find it if you just look for it. When you do find it, don’t let go of it. Life is too damn short.
Hi Cajun,
I have had the same thoughts… but feel as though there’s no place to go anymore. Not on this rock, at least.
FTL drive, anyone?
And daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?
Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.
Just thought I’d throw this in since I read the other day about some major energy players declaring bankruptcy. Peabody was one that stuck in my mind. After 50 years of everybody and their dog singing this one, they want to have the lyrics struck from federal records. jeez, what great people ran this company.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/09/peabody-energy-john-prine/
I packed up the wife, kids & dog and moved to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica 2 years ago. It ain’t perfect, but the gov’t is too lazy to mess with gringos, much. Close enough to come back to La when I need to, far away enough to drop off most radars.
And here, Toyota diesels rule the earth.
First point:
Since this thing runs using electricity, it pays NO gasoline taxes, which in most places goes to pay and maintain the roads. It travels the roads for free, by NOT paying the gasoline taxes. Here a question for all the liberals: where is the ‘fairness’ in that?
Second point:
The disposal and/or recycling of these batteries is expensive and not ‘environmentally friendly’. This subject, I have yet to read or hear from visionaries like Elon. (Visionaries see things.)
There will be a registration surcharge to cover the fuel tax not paid. (Some states already do that on hybrids.) On the Tesla the surcharge will be YUUUUGE!
I keep hearing about recycling of these batteries, but that can’t be environmentally friendly, or very cheap for that matter. It also is admitting that a major component in this vehicle is essentially useless scrap over time. Some ICE engines get scrapped, but usually over a much longer period of time.
Range: Just don’t drive that far. Most people do what 50 miles a day? If you live in New York or LA you loath the idea of going past the city limits anyway, unless your talking somewhere good like Costa Rica.
Charging time: Sure you can fill a gas tank in 5 minutes, but can you fill your gas tank in 5 minutes in your driveway? Tesla can ‘fuel’ your car in your driveway while you sleep. Oh and you don’t have to wait in line behind some third world cab drivers and touch that filthy fuel filler thing at the self service gas station.
Telsa is imperfect: So what? The once and a while you might need one of those gasoline cars and Uber won’t drive you, if you live in a civilized place, just log on to ZipCar and pick an appropriately sized one up in the garage at your building (assuming you had the forethought to move into a building that rents ZipCars). Otherwise, during normal business hours, Enterprise will bring a (domestic but good enough) car to your door.
“Telsa is imperfect: ”
Do much understating, there, George? That’s like saying Obama is an asshole. Gross understatements don’t make your case. Admit it, Teslas suck out loud for a fat man’s ass.
You can do it, son. Go ahead.
Hi George,
It’s the subsidies that I fundamentally take issue with. If you want to drive an over-priced, functionally impaired toy… well, by all means.
But please stop insisting I be forced to “help” you buy it.
eric, it’s funny how George says, “if you live somewhere civilized”, and he’s in New York.
By that virtue, how can you buy anything from General Motors or Chrystler, which took bailouts? How can you buy Japanese cars, which get lots of government favors, etc. Sadly, we don’t live in an economy which allows us to pick a product that was built in the free market.
I vehemently oppose subsidies of any form, however, I can’t avoid them when buying a car from anyone.
Hi OL,
Well, this is a little different – in that the Tesla itself is not viable as a car. Whatever can be said about GM or Chrysler, they do sell economically viable, functionally competent vehicles.
Tesla is almost a cartoon rendering of crony capitalism. Take away the carbon credits, the multi-tiered subsidies, and there is no way the company would remain in “business” for another month.
What would the true cost of a Tesla be if they had to be sold at actual cost to make plus a profit margin comparable to that obtained by selling an otherwise similarly priced IC car?
George, I live in a very civilized place. We have virtually no crime other than crop dusters overspraying your property and your body.
And yes, I can fill my car in the driveway from the overhead tank. And no, 50 miles will get you almost to town from our house. A Tesla would do everything I need…..if I had a flatbed truck to haul it on. It would sure look good with a half dozen bales of hay headed to the pens. As uber great as it is, baling wire wouldn’t even scratch it. But you probably think we’re not civilized.
It’s sorta funny big city folk(inhabitants)thing Tx. isn’t civilized but people are very friendly and help each other unlike any other place I’ve been. I think knowing fairly much everyone else has their own gun at the ready helps in that respect.
GfNY – I hope your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek. But just in case (and for the benefit of ‘the audience’) –
My daily commute is 46 miles – each way. I have a decent job that I like, but can’t afford to live closer and would not want to if I could. (I have tried to explain this to my Congressional ‘representative.’)
Your definition of ‘civilized’ must be very different from mine. When we were house hunting back in ’99, my wife told the realtor “I want a place where we can tie a goat in the front yard if we want to.”
Hi George from New York
You make a bit of a big deal about not having to “touch that filthy fuel filler thing at the self service gas station.” Thing is if you are going to use rent-a-car schemes you are going to have to touch the filth that previous users left behind for you – bacteria, virus, sweat, food slime, spit spray, fart gas, whatever they leave for you it is in there waiting for you.
You make a big deal about “third world cab drivers”. Thing is if you are going to use Uber and the like, which really are just taxi services, then you are not only waiting for your “third world cab driver”, you are getting into his car as well. And you are going to be exposing yourself to all the detritus and biologically active material in his car, for whatever is in there with him is ready to get onto you!
Such a civilised lifestyle you have in mind.
Si
Or he could go across the river to NJ and not be allowed to pump gas.
Speaking as a former resident of the “got-damn state” – there’s a REASON we want someone to pump his gas FOR him…
Toucheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Sione. Well said, brought a big smile to my face. And have a look at the fun these car reviewers are having!!!
https://practicalmotoring.com.au/car-reviews/tomcar-review-the-future-of-off-roaders/
The entry-level Tesla Model 3 sedan is coming the month and it’s (sic) not just supposed to transform the future of the company…
I agree with your blasting of the article, but your “(sic)” is misplaced. “It’s” (“it is”) is correct in that sentence.
Thanks, JDL… it was meant for the malaprop a few words later… fixed!
You both missed the first sentence error “coming the month”. Should be this, not the. (Sick)
Hey JdL. Got sick of Grant Stern and his PINAC rape? Keep Grammaring.
If there is a time in the future when this technology becomes practical. That is, charge times as quick as refilling a gas tank and some new type of battery that doesnt lose a charge – will we think the floating this crap venture was worth it?
I remember watching a documentary that included a prototype of a car made from carbon fiber. The body being made from the material made it so light that a 4 cylinder would push it as strong as an 8. The reason it wasnt produced was that there was no cost effective way. At least if we paid a premium for such a vehicle we would know we were getting something reliable – because of the gas engine.
Hi CP,
It boggles me. As a conveyance, as a way to get from A to B conveniently and inexpensively, any used economy car is vastly superior.
Some tout the Tesla’s looks. It’s not ugly, I’ll give it that. But it’s nothing spectacular, either. A Mazda6 is at least as pretty – and it costs at least $10k less and is (again) vastly superior as a car.
Some tout its performance. Yes, it’s quick. But if you use that quickness, the battery depletes quickly – and the range plummets. So, it’s like having a BMW M3 with a 5 gallon gas tank that you refill using a a hand pump.
Some tout its “green” credentials. Please.
” So, it’s like having a BMW M3 with a 5 gallon gas tank that you refill using a a hand pump. ”
Hand pump my rusty one. I can put 40 gallons in a machine in ten minutes with a hand pump if I’m motivated. I could do the same with a ladle in the time it takes to recharge a Tesla.
How about this, 8. It’s like having a flat on a LeTourneau dump, and filling it with a bicycle pump.
Don’t under estimate a good bicycle pump.
Don’t underestimate how many people it might take with a bicycle pump to fill a (appr.)4.5′ wide X 13′ tall tire on a 270 T truck with 160,000 lb. payload. Sorta boggles the mind eh?
I saw some of their much smaller dumps working on a project the last couple years. They left them sitting on a hill and you could see something bright yellow long before you could identify it.
I’m sure it would be a rush the first time you operated it. I once saw a smaller one than the big boy in a safety film. There was an F 350 with a mechanic bed and autocrane under one of the tires, flat as a flitter. The driver didn’t know the mechanic had pulled up to service it.
I was working on a Case 4WD tractor I had, servicing the a/c behind the barn one day. The wife had been mowing with the John Deere 20 hp mower but was in the house. I got in it and looked around after I started it. I didn’t see anything but I had an itchy feeling behind my ear. Got out and walked around it. Sure enough, she’d left that mower, just a $3500 machine itself, right behind a rear tire and I was about to back up.
A good bicycle pump could get that tire from flat to up to pressure before a Tesla could charge from zero (which really isn’t zero but the critical charge level plus margin) to fully charged. It’s just a matter of the physical endurance of the guy operating the pump.
Carbon fiber is an improvement though. I see no improvement over conventional internal combustion in an electric car short of the environmental argument which is dubious at best.
I’m not yet totally convinced that even hybrid cars are viable options. For a brief time, I thought the Toyota Prius had more or less solved the problems of hybrids, but I was wrong.
I just recently got back from a 4,000 mile trip/vacation in and around the Four Corners area of the Rockies. Included in the trip was a visit to Zion National Park. I chose to exit the park out the east (which I highly recommend, by the way, for the scenery alone plus the best tunnel I’ve ever driven through at just over 1 mile long). This consists of a long, two-lane, ever-climbing highway with switchbacks and a pretty steep grade for many, many miles.
Pretty soon I caught up with slower traffic, piling up a conga-line of cars ranging from big GMC Denali XLs to little econo-box three cylinders. Turns out, two cars ahead of me a brand new Prius was struggling to maintain 25mph uphill when all the other cars were easily clipping along 55+. The driver finally had a chance to pull over/off the road and out of traffic, and bless his soul he did so, recognizing that he had a 5 mile pile up on his rear bumper.
He wasn’t looking at scenery. His battery was simply totally depleted within the first few miles of that steep climb and the poor little gas engine in that Prius didn’t have the guts to pull it uphill any faster than that. It was simply overburdened, lugging a complete car and engine, plus electric motor, plus battery pack up a several-thousand-foot altitude change on a steep grade.
I’m not sure, but I think I saw a dude on a 12-speed road bike pass him uphill after he pulled over.
I don’t really have a problem with the technology per se, not even all electric cars. What I have a problem with is the government stealing money from me to hand out to companies that have half-baked technology not yet ready for prime time and tempting them to release this technology and grab the cash like some sort of Saturday morning game show, leaving us taxpayers stuck with underperforming, overpriced, unreliable cars.
If you want to be cutting edge and support such technology, be my guest. Just don’t make me support you financially while you do so.
love that drive up canyon through the tunnel.
last time my wife and i did that it was the first week of march, plowed to the park line, then 6″ of fresh snow all the way across the top. our 2000 scooby-doo did it with aplomb.
recently got my old honda civic si hatchback back in fighting trim and checked the mileage on my latest extended road excursion, 43.5 mpg, at freeway speed, with a bike rack on top. gas power, eco-bitches! not bad for a 30 year old beast.
i’m with the majority here; electrics could make sense as a 2nd vehicle in town, but if you’re looking at a 200 mile one way commute like i am, no way in hell. out here in the west long distances can be pretty much the norm depending on the business you find your self in.
and yeah, my tax money going to support your feel-good green nonsense is quite galling.
Hi Eric,
Yup. A $35,000 (to start) car that cannot serve as your primary car, that requires you to have a practical car for road trips, cold days and so on… is a toy.
I don’t want to be forced to subsidize anything. But to be forced to subsidize someone else’s toy is obnoxious in the extreme.
Dear Eric,
If people were to school , to learn, not to get a diploma , of course everybody was for sure able to see that what you’ve said and explained it is simple the laws of the Nature ( physics- chemistry thermodynamic ) .
But as I see all of them including Elon Musk nobody was to school to learn.
Anyhow and whatsoever I fully admire all of your comments and I fully agree .
I’m not an USA citizen , I am an European and I love to see that not all USA citizens are the dumb-dumbest stupids who I can see on TV or in Hollywood movies !
God bless you Eric !
Alex
PS I’ve made almost the same comments more technically then yours on many sites which glorify the intellectual fraud of Elon Musk.
II consider my self that Elon Musk actions will be the next Enron and other Panama fraud( that one from the beginning of the XX century , not the actual ) in a Ponzi scheme of fancy insane fairy-tales movie like pseudo-science
Thanks, Alex!
As others here have said, I don’t object to electric (or hybrid) technology as such. By all means, if it can be designed such that it delivers more bang for the buck than an internal combustion-engined car, I’ll clap.
Or at least, I won’t jeer.
I am all for alternatives and choices.
What I am opposed to (among other things) are subsidies for products that cannot stand on their own two feet.
Musk himself is particularly annoying because he’s a billionaire who could have self-financed his company.
The fact that he looks to government for “help” tells you all you really need to know about what he himself thinks about the economic viability of his cars.
All very true Alex. And nice of you to compliment his excellent work.
By conventional slave protocols, I have no standing to say any of the following, yet here I will write it yet again anyway.
I reject the notion I am a US citizen. Forcing me to submit to their lies does not make them true.
And I hope the American child prisons continue to decline. I do not give consent to them kidnapping my children to be forcibly indoctrinated.
Eric is a rare writer who really understands how things work, and therefore, doesn’t need to fill his paragraphs with artistry that looks impressive, but is objectively false.
Even rarer, is he doesn’t repeat all the commonly accepted dogma, nearly all of which is completely false. And also greatly damaging to our abilities to think.
Americans really are extremely dumb in many ways. And taught to be proud of their pig ignorance and utter incapacity, as if it’s a badge of honor to be equally stupid as a national egalitarian ideal.
At least Americans are each dumb in unique ways. The trouble with having European intelligence, is the horrific price you pay for it. Day after day, century after century, a pitiless brutal protocol is imposed by states, creeds, and tribes. Until all variance and uniqueness is subverted or removed.
Each European is bred like an animal, and programmed like a biological computer to be an automaton for those in charge. Greater intelligence is encouraged, but only in so far as it serves the state, and the billionaires of power.
You all rail against Musk, and rightly so. But where is the anger and dissenting shouts against being a pathetic biological robot cog in their machines of inhuman oppression.
Can you pass nature’s Turing Test. Can you aspire to be free and decent creatures. Like say the beaver, who provides the world fresh waters and lakes. And is a true hero of the world.
Or must you continue to make war against interchangeable gangs of soldiers. And build hulking monoliths to celebrate irrelevant nothingness. Meaningless buildings that all come to ruin and no set of ruins any more significant than the next.
Will you ever stand on your own two feet and stop being subsidized by the state and other oppressive institutions.
Will you finally be a decent natural man. Can you ignore their lies and false programming. A free living being. And no longer a destructive machine-like monstrosity that serves only to further the destructions and predations of the state?
Tesla Motors’ business model is entirely dependent on various government programs. Not just the obvious subsidizes to buyers or the start up loans to the company either. For every electric car TM sells it gets ‘credits’ it can sell to other automakers. Other automakers have to purchase these if they aren’t building enough electric cars to meet the government mandates. This sale of credits is the core of TM financial viability. It could possibly live without the credits buyers get. People may buy the cars without the tax rebates. Musk doesn’t and didn’t need government loans and such. It might even do ok without taxpayer funded charging. But without selling credits to other automakers it’s dead as a profitable concern.
Hey Brent,
Here’s a story on the depth of the muskrat’s dependence on subsidies.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
Jeremy
From: crwarmuth
“@Randal Colling I don’t think Musk receives any of the government “subsidies”. More likely, his companies gets the money (or, in most cases, the tax breaks) or the customers receive the credit.”
And now the important part:
“Musk’s fortune is driven by the stock he owns, and to my knowledge stock prices are not affected by government subsidies.”
This is what passes as intelligence in today’s environment. Note the poster stated Musk’s fortune is from stock. Stock that is artificially supported at its currently level by crony capitalism subsides. You can’t make this shit up can ya?
“to my knowledge stock prices are not affected by government subsidies.”
I know, I know, technically the Federal Reserve is not a gunvermin agency, but it is ‘official’ and the Chairman serves ‘at the pleasure of the President.’ And do you think maybe, just maybe, QE(whatever# they are currently calling it) has anything to do with stock prices?
Just wondering.
hi eric,
i love your analogy that it’s basically a toy, never thought about it in those terms before, but it fits perfectly.
that’s why i love my civic, a range in excess of 500 miles on a 12 gallon tank regardless of weather conditions. then, 3 minutes at the gas pump and shes ready for another 500 miles.
that’s practical transportation!
Thanks, Eric!
And – yup.
The Tesla is like any other exotic car: expensive and impractical.
Which is fine, if that’s what someone wants. But it’s outrageous that we’re forced to subsidize it.
Jalopnik strikes me as being very statist. It seems to buy into all that global warming shit and and is absolutely enamored with military actions and hardware. I’m curious as to whether anybody else here has comments about Jalopnik. By the way, it’s part of Gawker, who was recently on the receiving end of a $140 million judgment in favor of Hulk Hogan.
I went there, didn’t go back.
Jalopnik is the tolerable part of Gawker. The team D statism leaks into in large volumes but it’s nowhere near as bad as the rest of greater gawker.
I simply didn’t like their articles. They simply quoted the manufacturer’s lines and did no digging on their own. They publish anything including very pro-statis bs. In fact, they go over the line on that, some articles, way over.
In many articles they can’t even copy and paste information correctly.
The military statist BS is the very reason I cancelled my PM (Popular Mechanics) subscription. I can’t see why any military hardware would be considered popular outside the warmongering cabal. Not one person I know of is interested in what makes a tank go or how high a F35 fuckbat can fly! Same thing different day for the Popular Science mag.
And another thing: why is it that no one utters one peep about the fuel efficiency (or lack thereof) and emissions of all the military hardware? Somewhere I read that the Department of Defense is one of the US’ largest consumers of petroleum and one of the biggest polluters.
Not the largest user of oil in the US, but the world:
http://www.dailyenergyreport.com/how-much-energy-does-the-u-s-military-consume-an-update/
“The DoD accounted for around 1 percent of the US energy consumption and 80 percent of the federal government energy consumption. Although this may seem small, the fact is that the Pentagon is the largest single consumer of energy in the World. Nigeria, with a population of more than 160 million, consumes as much energy and emits as much CO2 as the US military.”
WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE! USA! USA! USA!
Also largest employer. Foxconn who makes all the sail fawns n smart devices is barely on the list.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers
F-35 Fuckbat. I’m going to remember that one. Brilliant
It’s also ugly.
Even modern airplanes are ugly.
The 707 was gorgeous. The Airbus 330 is a flying biscuit tin with wings.
Biggest chubby-inducer that’s not a good-looking human female: A Concorde on take-off roll… its four Olympus engines on afterburner.
Just read a scathing review of the F35 Lightning aka Fuckbat. Basically, the review boiled down to an ancient (by today’s standards, it was designed in 1974) F16 Falcon shooting down the Fuckbat 10 out of 10 times. Yet. the entire uS military will be using this platform until at least 2070. LOL! I think this plane was designed so the Israeli Air Force can beat the snot out of it. 😛
eric, when the Airbus first arrived, well, not arrived but was rolled out for testing when it could be photographed there was an engineering faux pas that had everyone scratching their heads. The front landing gear did not turn left nor right. It was so heavy it buckled the runways with countless machines dragging it sideways leaving huge black marks with the tires all swung out sideways and looking about to give up.
This was a video my cousin sent me from the skunkworks. I lost it when old Betsy here took a hard drive dump.
We would probably forgive you if you made the same error designing a racing bike and saying it didn’t need to turn since it would do that by leaning. OTOH, that bike doesn’t need to be drug sideways every time it’s used so the rider can de-bike.
When Tesla Motor’s started they had cars that allowed the battery cells to fall below the critical charge levels. Musk blamed the owners instead of admitting he didn’t know that with a proper BMS that was preventable. There was no excuse. It had been done with LiIon batteries in countless applications. But when it’s a government favored enterprise these basic fundamental mistakes don’t really matter.
Hi Brent,
I didn’t know the two (Gawker and Jalopnik) were related. Geezy Peasy. No wonder a guy can’t get a leg up. Like HuffPost, these outfits have big bucks backing them.
I can’t even afford to hire a tech dude.
I commented on a hit piece about VW’s so-called cheating. Took some good time with personal anecdotes, facts on emissions, economics ect. Posted the comment and later went back to see if there was anything being further discussed. My post was gone. Wrote to a site manager and the article’s author. Nobody could explain the mysterious disappearance of the only truthful part of that text.
Hi Fritz,
Yup. The stories I have…
I can only do what I do now because I went off the reservation. And because this site is controlled by me.
I’ve only seen one Tesla, probably the only privately owned electric car I’ve ever seen in public. It was snowy and frigid, we were cruising along with traffic at 70mph with a strong headwind on the turnpike, the perfect driving conditions for minimal range. It’s many miles between exits and charging stations are neither super fast ones nor slow ones – there aren’t any at all.
I never would have known what make it was except we got a good, long look at it from various angles as we passed it. The salt encrusted technological marvel was on a rollback.
Hilarious… and, sad.
Speaking of which: VW was going to send me an electric Golf. But the thing can’t make it farther than about 70 miles on a charge.. and it’s 200-something miles from the press pool to my place here in The Woods.
A TDI Golf could make the round trip along with your road tests on a single tank. All while using the heater, headlights, and any other electrical paraphernalia desired. Yet there are thousands of 2016 models sitting in storage that can not be sold. Yeah, electric cars rock.
Hi Eric,
“When it runs out juice, you’ve run out of luck.” This would mean the car would have to be towed to a charging station or home. I have run out of gas two times in my 35 years of driving. While inconvenient, all it took was a walk and a little time on one occasion, and a phone call to my wife and a pleasant nap, on the other occasion, to solve the problem.
Jeremy
Exactly!
Electric cars are, at best, not-ready-for-prime-time.
I wish I could stuff Musk in a Fed Ex shipping crate and send him back to Estonia or wherever it is he came from.
Could we maybe trade Musk for Tesla himself? And bring back Edison too while we’re at it?
PTB,
They can keep Edison. But another Tesla? The uS goonverment would imprison him to keep the status quo. Can’t have absolute geniuses running rampant threatening the crony capitalist gravy train now can we?
Let me clarify my earlier statement. Today, a person like Tesla would be branded an “Economic Terrorist” mainly because Tesla always fought the powers that be. Due to Edison, he died penniless.
While I will admit that Edison did bring many things to the market place, his purported invention of items are false. He didn’t invent incandescent lighting. He merely improved on an already available technology. He did this with a lot of items. Edison even got into a dispute with Western Electric over the telephone. Tried to have Westinghouse & Tesla’s Alternating Current power plant shut down as unsafe. He even went so far as to use an electric chair to demagogue A/C. Another thing, Edison had no problem using the power of the state against his competition.
Edison was the Bill Gates of his time.
Another Edison? Nah let him rest with the rotten fish heads.
OK David. I had forgotten about the AC/DC squabble.
Another thing Edison did before the incandescent bulb was ‘standardized’ was have his people go around and offer samples of ‘his’ bulb, which required them to screw in an adapter which could then not be removed w/o damaging the socket.
How about an air china bag wrapped with 3 layers of clear tape? Hang the expense!!
Hell, Jeremy, all it takes now is a call to the battery truck………
Eight,
Yeah, but all the trucks are in Brigadoon and the call only goes through one day in a century.
Jeremy
So, you’re saying it’s theoretically possible I’ll get a bye from the IRS?
There is a way that electric cars could be made viable: Equip them with battery packs that can be quickly and easily swapped out at “battery stations.”
Doing so, however would mean that:
1. We’d have to mine and refine a lot more of the rare earth minerals used in these batteries…which means more earth rape;
2. We’d have to have electric car makers agree on one, or two, standardized battery pack types and interfaces. This is harder than it seems: remember the VHS vs. Betamax fiasco?
3. We’d need to figure out how the battery stations would be designed, equipped and staffed. For example, would the packs be replaced by people or robots?
4. We’d need to invest quite a bit of money in building and maintaining a lot of complex infrastructure to support the battery stations, from the stations themselves to the power lines and generators.
5. We’d need to deal with the environmental impact of these battery stations, which includes the earth-rape to get the materials in the batteries to the pollution from coal plants and waste from nukes, and especially disposing of the battery packs when they die.
All of this requires a lot of talent and money…Mr. Musk, where will this come from? If you said “Uncle Sam,” you win! (Actually, from Uncle Sam picking our pockets.)
“We’d have to have electric car makers agree” – but if they did this on their own, it would be considered ‘collusion.’ No, it would have to be the gunvermin making the choice. Then what are the odds it would be a good choice?
Exactly! It almost always ends up happening this way.
A battery pack is very expensive and is something that requires caring for it properly for it to last. It’s something that can be degraded by abuse. It’s something that can be ‘rebuilt’ with inferior components. It’s something where inferior components and abuse can lead to fire. A swapping system would only encourage people with bad packs to stick someone else with their problem. Just make it good enough to turn in so the next person gets stuck with it and the replacement charges.
Just imagine you’re 18 years old and your car’s pack just died. It’s dead because of a couple bad cells. So on your 18 year old budget you get two new cells, the cheapest there are. Straight from China via ebay. You break the spot welds and solder in the new cells. Now there is a highly compromised battery pack. But hey your car works. It passes all external tests. Maybe you know what you did ain’t right and maybe you don’t. But hey, there’s a way to get a nice OEM pack in good shape. The swap out station. Maybe you just needed the quick charge maybe you knew that you could dump your patched battery pack. It doesn’t matter. For a few bucks and a little effort the hacked together pack is off to being the problem of someone else.
Yet another problem we’d have to deal with…and with a car, it’d be not just a minor annoyance, but a real catastrophe…like when it leaks or catches on fire. We’d have to make those battery packs pretty tamper-proof and idiot-proof…but the idiots keep getting better at tampering every day.
“idiots keep getting better”
That’s 1 thing the gunvermin ‘schools’ are good at, building better idiots.
nothing is tamper proof. There’s just tamper resistant and tamper detectable. The later isn’t 100%
The Model S already has a swappable battery pack. I’m not sure that there are any public “stations” already in service, but probably at least one or two in California.
Essentially you drive the thing in, onto a sort of low-slung platform, then get out. The platform has automated systems that align the car precisely to the platform, then they unscrew the battery pack from the bottom of the Model S, drop it down and slide it over, and pull up a new battery pack to be screwed back onto the underside of the Model S. All-in-all it takes under 10 minutes. The station uses “green” energy sources such as solar panels on the station itself to recharge the pack you dropped off while you drive off with a fully charged battery pack. It’s sort of like dropping of an empty propane tank and picking up a full one.
But it’ll only work for a Tesla Model S.
And it’ll cost you a certain percentage down-payment on the battery pack (I guess in case you try to give them a dud battery pack).
And it takes several minutes for the “station” to reset to be ready for the next Tesla S to be swapped.
And what happens if all the battery packs are depleted and haven’t yet recharged?
And how much does all this wundercrap cost to build and operate per station?
It’s an interesting idea, but still not anywhere close to viable.
Regarding #2, why so difficult? We already have plenty of experience with standard battery sizes (AA, AAA, C, D, etc.), which is why swapping them in our small devices is so easy & quick. Perhaps 4-5 different sizes (larger size = longer range) with the same connection.
Regarding #3 and #4, the design, staffing, infrastructure, etc. will initially be the same as gas stations. That will change with time. Do modern gas stations look anything like their 1950s ancestors? In fact, don’t be surprised if the first battery-swap stations are add-ons to gas stations or (especially) truck stops.
A battery pack of the size and weight needed makes this implausibleunfortunately. Think about the number of refills that happen at a gas station daily. Increase that a bit due to shorter range than ICE cars, and think of how many they would have to keep on site. Obviously they could take a battery, recharge it and put it in a new car later, but they would still have to have what would be the equivalent of a small salvage lot out back to support that kind of business. In fact the cost of that kind of service might make gas at almost any price look cheap.
I slam in the amex card zip code and then 16 gallons in a little under two minutes on average. If its only 8 or 10 gals, barely even 1 minute.
The longest part of refueling is probably the worry and mental disruption it takes to work it into your linear sequence. Obsessing about long electrical refuels and doing them would be probably 15 to 30 times longer for me.
Plus you got to have a gps 4g device with you for sanities sake and for the huge flock of black swans that will shit on your pointy green eco head far more trips than youd think.
“16 gallons in a little under two minutes on average”
You must have faster pumps in TX than we do in MD. Maybe it’s a saaaaaaaafety issue. At least we can still pump our own, instead of waiting for Bucky like in NJ or OR. Given the ‘caliber’ of folks working jobs like that, how can it be safer than Joe Sixpack doing it himself?
Same reason cops are better qualified to be armed than us average rubes…
/sarc
😉
“Plus you got to have a gps 4g device with you for sanities sake and for the huge flock of black swans that will shit on your pointy green eco head far more trips than youd think.”
You sure can turn a phrase, Tor. That was funny as shit.
Hey Eric,
Great article as usual. One correction, wait times of half an hour to forty five minutes are 6-9 times the average of 5 minutes for a gas car.
Jeremy
I thought that looked a bit off, but didn’t take time to do the math.
My boss has a ‘plug-in Prius.’ Works great for his commute, topping off on both ends. But his wife has a Passport that they use on trips.
The idea of an electric car is compelling: Charge it in your garage, drive it for a few cents worth of electricity, much lower routine maintenance costs. But then there’s that energy storage problem. Well, not so much a problem but a major negative in the cost/benefit analysis you do (or should do) when you buy a vehicle. This dooms the electric to a “second car” status, likely forever. If you can only afford one vehicle you’re going to want the biggest bang for your buck, and that means gasoline. It isn’t because of not wanting an electric vehicle, it comes comes down to economics.
And who’s going to be driving the electric? I’m not married, but you bet if I were the wife wouldn’t be driving it. No way I’d want her stranded on the side of the highway because she left with a 1/2 charged vehicle. If that happened to me, well, “ha ha look at the dork stuck on the side of the road.” Wife with crying baby and melting ice cream is a disaster of evening news proportions. So that means I’m driving it for my commute, which is OK if I drive to an office and drive to lunch then home again. But that’s a $15K used car at best. And an econobox gets good enough milage and low enough maintenance costs to offset most of the benefits of an electric (not to mention you’ll likely pass several gasoline stations along the route). If you’re a salesman or need to drive to other offices as part of your job, forget it. No way your boss is going to put up with “well I can’t get over there to get the network back up because my car is still charging.”
About 20 years ago I read a book about how to convert one of the baby pickups (Datsun 620 or Ford Ranger) to an electric drivetrain. IIRC it could be done using DC motors for under $1000 in 1990s money, much of which could be financed by parting out the gas drivetrain. AC motor and advanced controller could get you more range and/or fewer batteries, but higher cost and more complexity in the system. This starts to make sense economically speaking. Of course, it’s not sexy, and you’ll still run into the range vs comfort problem.
I’m not surprised that over 100K people have signed up to buy one of these new cars. Marketing strives to create an emotional response and suppress logic and reason. Much easier to fool the lizard brain than appeal to the frontal lobe. There are so few Teslas out there that it’s very likely no one has ever seen one, except maybe at the snooty-rich guy mall next to the Apple store. All they hear is the hype surrounding the product, the company and the man. It’s very easy to gloss over the “up to 200 mile” range, the marketing department does a great job of downplaying that, while hyping up the “features” that are basically available on every other vehicle.
I see quite a few of them in Aspen, especially in the summer (Aspen is a great town for spotting odd and exotic cars). I’ve also seen quite a few (relative to the total number) on flatbeds heading “down valley” on highway 82 on their way home after the vacation. You can bet the drivers aren’t in the cab of the truck, no, they’re in their NetJet headed back to California, still rambling on about how they just loved going to the Woody Creek Tavern and sitting at Hunter’s table. And there’s the rub: If there were a way to transport these vehicles over the long distances between destinations easily they once again start to make sense as a primary driver. One example might be the Autotrain, which travels along the east coast and lets the snowbirds get their cars to Florida without having to make the drive. Except, oh, once again there’s Uncle, there to intervene and regulate to keep new players out of the railroads.
You remind me, while talking above…?
People were kind enough to leave out the excessive lump of mass that the battery becomes.
As you consume the (far lower weight) gasoline, the car becomes lighter, so less energy is needed to accelerate and to maintain speed.
With a battery, as the charge drops, the mass stays the same.
In BAD weather, the extra mass would be helpful, but due to poor performance in the cold…? Not redeeming itself any…
http://www.dailybreeze.com/business/20160401/198000-customers-plunk-down-1000-deposits-for-tesla-model-3-electric-car
198,000 put down $1,000 deposit for this .gov subsidized toy! How long will it take Tesla to build and deliver those cars? I bet you 80% of these clowns have college educations, as “clean and green” is part of da edukated “feel good”. Doesn’t say much for higher learning. Suckers!
We’ll see how many people actually shell out the dough when their number comes up. A $1k refundable deposit is much different than 10s of thousands in a final purchase.
Jalopnik has been somewhat disappointing as of late. I really don’t understand why people buy into the Tesla myth like this. Electric cars are a great idea but “we” just aren’t there yet with the technology. All new Teslas sold in areas that aren’t powered by nuclear plants should come with a free 50 pound bag of raw coal sown into the back seat, just as a reminder of what’s really powering your new wunder-auto. Then again, that extra weight might drop your total range by a few miles.
I know three people that can’t wait to buy one of these. When I present them with the facts about how a nice Corolla or ( shriek!) even a TDI Golf would be more efficient,useful, and even less detrimental to the environment they scoff at me and call me a “climate denier”.
Environmentalism is all about feeling good rather than actually doing good….well that and snuffing out the imperialist capitalist pig-dogs and creating a new socialist paradise.
Also, mega-kudos for using the term “earth-rape”.
Agreed, Shemp – excellent synopsis!
Shemp, please convey my desire for those “cocksuckers” you know that I demand that they demand to pay my part of this debacle. They should have no problem with it. I already have enough problems with that infernal tax group right now.
I’ll be sure to relay that to them. They fully buy in to the whole electric car fantasy about saving the planet from global cooling/warming/change/hollowearth/supernovaSol. Their heads nearly exploded when I questioned them on driving 20 miles each way to go buy food at Trader Joes instead of the local Publix because in their mind Trader Joe’s is more ecologically aware and less harmful to the environment. No joke.
Thanks. BTW, have them do a bit of research for images of what the land in Africa and all those “stans” looks like where they mine for all those rare metals. Dead vegetation and people with sores covering them.
Ask them about the deal between Hitlery and Putin to take everybody’s land away in Oregon and other areas where locals are being murdered by the feds to get what little land is in private hands away and into big brother’s so the rich bitch and her rich and also murderous tyrant buddy get even richer via ‘govt. land’.
Hi Shemp,
I live 3 blocks from a Trader Joe’s and, I must admit, I love it. However, when my more liberal friends bitch about Walmart’s unethical business practices, I ask them if they shop at Trader Joe’s. “Sure, why?”, they ask. Then I tell them that Trader Joe’s pursues exactly the same business model as Walmart: low consumer prices achieved by aggressive bargaining with suppliers for the lowest possible price, relatively low wages, management positions filled by promotion from within the company, etc… Funny how they think there is something wrong with those practices when Walmart does them, but think they’re different when done by Trader Joe’s.
Jeremy
“call me a ‘climate denier'”
I’m not one of those. I have no problem admitting that the climate changes. I just deny that mankind has much, if anything, to do w/it.
Tell me about it. I know at least a couple of people who are all over themselves to see the new Tesla. Maybe people can’t see it, I’m not sure. I keep telling them that you can’t drive this thing like you do a normal car. Don’t expect more than 100 miles on a charge if you go 80-85. Uncle is going to make us pay for all of this. Uncle must own the press as well. There is a propaganda campaign in full swing here. I’m not fooled, I’m not swayed at all, except, at $35,000, the Tesla with all of its shortcomings, is about the price of your average car these days. It’s no accident. Normal cars have become air bomb equipped , electrctronic conveyance with tepid sounding engines which feel like they have a potato stuck in their exhaust. I can’t stand today’s cars at all. None of them. They are making the Tesla almost palatable.
Hi Swamp,
Yeah… that is a very interesting observation and worth a rant all its own. I am still very disappointed, though, with Jalopnik. The article is not only a blowjob for Tesla, it’s a poorly written blowjob for Tesla.
Eric,
I was annoyed by the article when I read it. I do not understand the appeal of the tesla unless I wanted an expensive toy.
Will it (the Tesla):
• travel ~400 miles of normal use between charges? (not yet)
• be charged and ready to go in under 5 minutes? (not yet)
• be relative unaffected by the weight being carried. (not yet)
• be relative unaffected by the temperature changes. (not yet)
• be relative unaffected by the changes in terrain–hilly vs flat. (not yet)
• able to be easily serviced by owner without needing to visit the dealer (not yet)
Yup, ditto.
Maybe I am getting old. These kids writing about cars today appear to be Cloverized; lovers of “technology” (and “safety”) with no appreciation for machinery, affection for liberty or interest in the cost of things.
They peck like seagulls at shreds of tinfoil.. because it’s shiny and novel to them.
Too bad it don’t hang in their little craws and choke them to death. Hey, I’m just “looking out for the environment”. Fewer mouths to feed and a lot less CO2. A lot less methane evidently too since they’re obviously full of it. She’s a sleek little thing at 5 foot 2, eyes of blue and a waist of 52.
“They peck like seagulls” – cue Finding Nemo “Mine, mine, mine, mine.”
It’s all about click bait, “sponsored content” and cookie files. I’ve noticed that several sites I’d sometimes visit have started to deny access if you’re running an ad blocker. Well, I guess I didn’t want to read that article anyway. Wired has started to offer blockers a $1/day (I think) alternative if you want to read their “content.” Well, if it weren’t the same ad-influenced pablum they usually offer maybe I would.
Any journalist with any integrity or experience is being driven out of the industry in favor of cheap labor. Many stories are generated by “AI” programs. This is the future of mainstream journalism. Just regurgitate the PR Wire story. TV reporters have to have a D cup and wear a size 0 dress. The ability to read at a 3rd grade level desired but not necessary.
Hi Eric,
Yeah, that’s about it.
It used to be that car journalists were – for the most part – enthusiasts at least and (more often than not) gearheads who understood machinery.
Not anymore.
Many are just generic “feature” writers tasked to write something about cars. Not many wrench anymore.
I’m glad I got in just in time to experience the industry before it was fully Cloverized.
You caught on the fringe there. I noted the turning point of when Car and Driver lost Casba Csere. (spelling?) in the middle 2000’s. I stopped reading them around 2012.
They’d never hire my type nowadays. That mag has become another iteration of CR…. saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety first!
eric, back in “my” day, an auto journalist was looked on by most as a rogue racer making a living writing about a sanitized version of what he did with cars…..or not. Now and again one would write about taking a rep to task and driving a vehicle into the ground to prove him wrong.
I loved Sports Car Graphic in the old days(60’s and 70’s although they gave it up in the 70’s and became Car and Driver) since there was no PC.
But Tom McCahill left me gasping and laughing. He held the big 3 over the fire for shitty cars and high prices.
After Nader did his smear job on the Corvair Tom took one and went out into the woods on logging roads with huge ruts and tried to flip one, wearing a helmet and strapped in(he was a racer after all). He couldn’t do it and called Nader many names, all printable but we knew what he meant “Nader the statist blowjobber”)…..my translation.
His description of a new ’57 Poncho as being “smooth as a prom queen’s thighs” and the ’54 De Soto as being solid as the rock of Gibraltar and just as fast.
It was Tom who made me a gearhead so I owe him a lot. I loved his tests too. The big 3 made all sorts of claims back then and he’d make sure they were exposed as bullshit. If one of them made some sort of speed claim or one of their bs ability to tow claims he’d make sure he took that model and toasted it.
He was attacked by 3 hooligans it was claimed were hired by GM for his slight of some car. He beat hell out of two and the other fled.
Car and Driver was irreverent and also commonly notified a manufacturer where they could find their “test” vehicle.
The “Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea” race dreamed up by Brocke Yates, Steve Smith and “Cannonball” Baker, a biker, was always a hoot. They got me on the “sleeper” kick and lots of other people too. Friends of mine produced cars such as “98’s” with uber power(they were the 455 HP HD 455’s), aftermarket suspension and colors you totally ignore. Stick huge bi-linear amplifiers on “CB” radios that had crap like military and police bands you could access with NB switches and SSB switches. Hold the mic key down for a couple minutes and the airwaves would be clean and clear. Who could guess that brown ’98’ with the 14′ tandem axle trailer was blowing everybody’s communications to hell while doing 125 all the way from Charlottesville to Austin?
Nobody had a clue that ’74 Ford crewcab one ton pickup had a full-blown 390 based race engine that would outrun everything out there. It had over 100 gallons of fuel tanks and used it rapidly.
I loved to read McCahill’s stuff way back when. He was a no bullshit writer, probably fortunate to have left this mortal coil before having to witness the advent of Joan Claybrook, who I consider to be the mother goddess of Cloverism.
Hi Trevor,
Amen.
Also Brock Yates and some others like him. My kind of people.
How did that termagant and her ilk become ascendant?
Bad money always drives out good….
Technology is fine. Especially when it works as advertised. 😉
At some point one should ask if the benefit (of the feature or technology) is worth the cost.
I am willing to have a car that is more reliable and inexpensive to operate, even if it might be 2-3 mpg less efficient.
I would also like the return of more 14″ and 15″ wheels on cars instead of the current trend of 17″, 18″ and larger rims.
Larger rims do not look improve the ride of the car and they are much more costly than the smaller diameter tires.
Hi Mith,
As you write…
If the Tesla were “all that” it would not need to be so heavily subsidized. The fact that Tesla could not survive on its own absent the subsidies is all you really need to know about the economic merit of the technology.
Sure, it’s pretty – and (for a few runs) quick. And yeah, the cars have all kinds of gee-whiz electronics. But considerations of cost apply here as much as they do to a Lamborghini or other exotic toy.
Except we’re not forced to subsidize Lambos.
All their Elton Musk articles are like that. I used to comment on them and become the ire of the peanut gallery. Didn’t matter which one of his crony enterprises it is. I started to refer to Musk as “Gawker Media’s favorite crony capitalist” which of course didn’t go over well either. It was amusing when an entirely privately funded venture was first to successfully land a rocket on end like in a 1950s sci-fi movie after Jalopnik had spent so much time promoting Musk’s company’s failed efforts. Of course I notice no article in the Jalopnik feed on the successful landing.
Gawker media is very much in favor of crony enterprises. There was recently an article on Faraday Future’s crony tax deal and how it was a good thing. I made a comment deploying the seen and the unseen, one my favorite Bastiat themes. Instead of the usual shitstorm I got a favorable response. I was surprised. Maybe something is working or I am getting better at expressing it.
I didn’t bother commenting on the article mentioned here, having grown tired of Musk fanbois and apologists.
Hi Brent,
Jalopnik will see my rant … shit storm is brewing! 🙂
I’ll get my umbrella ready.
“You might also earn “up to” $100,000 a month working from home, using our multi-level marketing scam. Just call 1-800-BULLSHIT and sign up now.”
I think that’s the same crew who breathlessly spoke of going to the oil patch and making $150,000/year driving a truck. Shit Ronnie, where do I sign? If you work your ever-lovin ass off, never taking a break and are an exceptional fiction writer, filling in your “liars book” aka log book, you can make half that. I suppose these people who speak of such have never heard of the old sliding scale.
Certainly someone could make a $150K by driving 96 hours a day. 🙂
And the rent at the only “house” on the site is $200 per day.
Oh yeah. I am not a fan of theirs. Occasionally they have an intelligent thing or two to say. And they can be funny, but for a car website, I find it to look like the product of some very high IQ people who belong in an insane asylum. I am generally unimpressed with their format and their content. It kind of reminds me of when Car and Driver would do road tests of garden equipment. At least that was funny and formatted well. I am not surprised about the BJ for Tesla. And another thing… I find Elon Musk to be a foreign national who is contemptible in his speech when talking about carbon deeeeoxide. Give me a fucking break.
“high IQ people who belong in an insane asylum”
The ‘idiot savant’ has his place, as long as he is kept in it. See Rainman. But now they are running the place.