Electric Car Fever

By
eric
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181
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Maybe you remember Disco Fever.

Mid-70s, United States. For no apparent reason, suddenly everyone seemed to be singing in a high-pitched falsetto voice and wearing skin-tight lycra with open collared shirts displaying chest hair and gold medallions.

It was fun for awhile but got old fast.

Electric Car Fever is now upon us. Laws are being passed – the Brits being the latest – mandating the production of electric cars by outlawing the production of cars powered by internal combustion.

This will get old fast, too.

King Canute could decree that the tide not come back – and politicians can decree that we’ll all be driving electric cars by “x” year, not too far from now. But wishing – and decreeing – can’t overcome reality. It can just make things really expensive and difficult for us.

One reality almost no one seems willing to talk plainly about is the fact that hundreds of thousands of electric cars queuing up to spend 30-45 minutes each at a recharging port is as ludicrous in concept as waiting that long at McDonald’s to get a burger. Especially when there is a Wendy’s across the street that’ll get a burger in your hands and you back on the road in less than 5 minutes.

Most people will never accept this. Would you accept waiting 30-45 minutes (absolute best-case scenario, if a “fast” charger is available) to put a partial charge back into your EV? Were you aware that at the high-voltage “fast” chargers, due to the nature of the thing (and for the sake of battery life) you cannot put more than 80 percent charge back into the thing?

So, whatever the advertised best-case range of the car is, subtract 20 percent.

That puts even the longest-ranged of them in the same class as the fiercest-guzzling IC-engined SUV. Maybe 200 miles or so. But the fierce-guzzling SUV can be refueled to 100 percent in 5 minutes.

Which would you prefer to take on a road trip? One where there might not be a “fast” charger available when you run out of juice. What then?

Then, you spend overnight wherever you happen to be.

Electric car freaks peddle a Disney-esque fantasy to counter this objection. They envision everyone plugging in at home, overnight – or at work, while they work. The problem with this idea is the ant-like uniformity of use it assumes. Everyone going to work – and back home – at pretty much the same time.

A middling-bright eight-year-old would be raising his hand about now.

American driving patterns are scattershot. People are individuals and have individually variable schedules. They work odd hours. Part-time. They need to go Here – and then There.

On the spur of the moment, not planned in advance.

Have a look outside and see whether you see vacant streets during the hours in between 9 and 5. Then a sudden effusion of cars and people migrating homeward.

How about . . . traffic? It’s quite true that an electric car’s battery isn’t being drained to move the car when it’s not moving, as when it is stuck in traffic. But if you are running the AC (or the heater) and the lights you are drawing volts – and running the battery down. Keep in mind the best-case 30-45 minute wait to “fill ‘er up.”

It’s so laughable it’s painful.

The reality of EV World would be conga queues that would make the gas lines of the early ’70s (the result of oil embargoes, not lack of oil) seem like a minor irritation in comparison.

The Conga Effect would multiply, too – as  (potentially) hundreds of thousands of EVs jockey for a slot at a charging port. Imagine a gas station, right now, with each EV taking a minimum of 30-45 minutes to finish its business.

Certifiable.

Leaving aside the economic absurdity of electric cars – the least expensive of them cost in excess of $30,000 (heavily subsidized, the true cost is much higher) which renders retarded any talk of “saving money” when you could buy a more functionally competent IC-powered car for half that sum – there is one non-negotiable technical/practical hurdle that must be overcome before EVs could conceivably replace IC-powered cars on a mass scale:

They must be able to get back on the road within 5 minutes. Even a 15 minute wait is unacceptable. Five minutes. No more.

Or – as a compensatory fix – an EV must be able to travel at least 600 miles before needing to be recharged.

Absent one or the other, the whole scheme is preposterous. Either that or deliberately calculated to be ruinous.

Which may well be exactly it.

The people pushing electric cars are aware of the realities discussed above, their pie-in-the-sky assurances notwithstanding. By pushing cars that don’t work and which they know don’t work, they may be deliberately trying to recreate the world that existed before Henry Ford gave the world the Model T.

Which made cars affordable.

Before the T, cars were expensive extravagances, the toys of the rich.

Sound familiar?

From a certain point of view, affordable mobility is not desirable. That is to say, independent mobility. It is harder to control, encourages random and unpredictable patterns of human activity – the kind of activity loathed by the central planning, nudging technocrats who are (among other things) pushing electric cars.

The question is – will there be any push back?

And will it come in time?

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Related posts:
  1. More Government “Help” For Electric Turduckens
  2. The Electric Car Albatross
  3. Electric Cars Could Work… If The Government Got Out Of The Car Business
  4. The Electric Car Imbroglio is About to Get Even More Expensive…
  5. More Electric Car Kool Aid

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181 COMMENTS

  1. “If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas”.

    I love this quote. It is the ultimate libertarian response to “government ”

    Made my day.

    • Yep, that’s a good one. I like the little line in John Prine’s song that went, “If heartaches were commercials, we’d all be on TV”.

      • And I like this one

        In spite of ourselves
        We’ll end up a sittin’ on a rainbow
        Against all odds
        Honey, we’re the big door prize

        with Iris Dement

        A couple years ago I was on call on Sunday, hell, every day, didn’t make a damn. I wasn’t logging cause they hadn’t forced me to so hours were just more money and I didn’t give a shit as long as I found a bed to lay in so I’m headed to a rig to get some shakers and take to the Seminole yard to get rebuilt when a live John Prine interview comes on Sirius. It was about a 6 hour run and the show lasted till right before I got back. John did a plethora of songs, just him and his guitar and reminisced about more people than I can remember. They even played a few songs of him and a few other people just pickin and grinnin, no studio, just facing each other and getting it. The whole time I’m think “and I’m getting paid to do this……overtime”. I do miss the patch hoppin but it’s comin back.

        • And we’re gonna spite
          our noses right off of our faces;
          Ain’t gonna be nothin but big ol’ hearts a’dancin in our eyes.

          Remember that John Prine and Steve Goodman wrote that great song for David Allen Coe, “You Dont Have To Call Me Darlin, Darlin”.

    • Who cares?

      Keep in mind some of us are not “green” but simply cheapskates.

      Current, low gasoline prices will likely mean cheaper lease deals for current generation Volt.

      The previous generation leased for as low as $99/month, and even that had a range that would cover my commute. Plus I can easily recharge the above overnight with a 120VAC extension cord, for about 1/3 of the cost of burning gasoline.

    • Hi Arnold,

      The regular Prius is actually powered by gas! (It doesn’t plug in. If you want that feature, you have to pay extra for the “Prime” version.)

  3. I just stumbled across this article.

    Where the World’s Unsold Cars Go To Die
    by Tyler Durden
    May 17, 2014 9:32 PM

    It says that all sorts of brand new cars that roll off the assembly lines go unsold and wind up in what amounts to “automotive graveyards”.

    Does anybody know anything about this? If true, it’s mind boggling. If true, does anybody have any opinion on why it is happening.

    I suppose if a Walking Dead scenario were to come true, they would be a good source of new cars to drive, assuming you can still get gasoline of course, which reminds me, The Walking Dead is now seven years into the Apocalypse.

    Where the hell are Rick and his friends getting usable gasoline from? Unless they’re making biodiesel and driving only diesels, that’s a pretty big plot hole. LOL.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-16/where-worlds-unsold-cars-go-die

    • bevin, I just came across “this” comment. 6 months or so ago I was cleaning in the barn and came across my prized(6 gallon red can with “Galvanized Gas Can” in white letters) galvanized gas can I thought I had lost. I got to thinking when it had been filled and realized it was 3 years previous. The gas was fine. But I noticed long ago that gas lasted 6 months smelling and running ok in plastic jerry cans but no real date of going bad in my galvanized cans. Not just the plastic but evidently no light has a great deal to do with its “use before” date. Just this week I opened an Amsoil gallon jug of 2 cycle mix for the chain saw and it was fine. That’s a black jug that lets no light in and it is 2 years old. I hope to use it when it gets cold but don’t feel it absolutely necessary since it was fine 2-3 days ago. Probably opening it wasn’t a good thing letting in new air. That same day my big red can was full of gas and I needed some in the pickup. Since it’s gone up 40 cents I decided to use what was in the can. It dates from last year, probably 18 months or so, the last time I had needed the mower since cows have been keeping the yard to a minimum. I hadn’t intended evidently to keep it long since it had no stabilizer in it. I’ve been using it to mow since the gauge on the pickup decided to work again showing I had 3/8’s of a tank. It smells good and runs good and looks yellow, the best color I could hope for with plain gas. I’ll touch what’s left with a bit of stabilizer so I can use it for mowing and 2 cycle fuel the rest of the year. Of course if I continue to mow what I need to it will be gone quickly. When I didn’t let the cows in around the house I had half of 12.6 acres I COULD mow but mostly didn’t. I need to get my shredder back from a guy and take care of it with Ginny, the tractor.

      But before these events I knew my plastic jug gas was a goner fairly quickly. Underground, who knows?

      • Dear 8,

        That’s surprising. Well good. That means these technical details don’t weaken the credibility of the story as much as I feared.

        Personally, I am perfectly “willing to suspend disbelief” vis a vis The Walking Dead. It’s a great show that has surreptitiously advanced many arguments in favor of liberty. For example, the Negan character is the perfect argument against taxation and gun registration.

        But strictly speaking, the physiology of the “walkers” is pretty sketchy. Many of them are shown rotted away to the point where they are essentially skeletons. Without muscle tissue, how can they possibly stand, let alone walk?

        • Hey Bevin. What do you think of this vid?

          Maybe the kids spend too much time in front of screens, but I think the younger ones know a lot more than I hear them being given credit for here.

          This is a six minute video by the number one blogger on YouTube. He’s got 57 million subscribers and every word of it is something that would fit in nicely with everything that’s being discussed here.

          CELEBRITIES AND THE DINOSAUR MEDIA SAY TRUMP HAS TRIGGERED ARMAGEDDON AND ITS ALL OVER!
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH7wMFrWYoA

          Generation Y(Ages 19-35) is mostly a lost cause, but generation Z gets it.(Ages 2-18)
          2

          • Dear Tor,

            We 9/11 truth movement people cite irrefutable hard science and long established engineering know how to make our case, yet get dismissed as “tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists”?

            Meanwhile, a Hollywood actress floats the idea that some sleazy pol triggered Armageddon, and the MSM gives her a free pass?

            Talk about double standards.

            Seriously, if imperial hubris was the reason so many hurricanes have struck America, would the election of Hillary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton have mollified the gods?

            • Katniss has sure came down a few pegs since her Hunger Games days.

              I read somewhere ROC has the second highest quality of life in the world these days. I hope it’s true.

              Are you following the Lee Ming-che, Peng Yuhua trial? Is there more to it, is it similar to the VW executive and bitcoin market kidnappings of the Yankee Government?

              • Dear Tor,

                Quite right. This, of course, provides us with an important reminder of what’s what.

                Actors are not the characters they portray. The characters portrayed on are the actors.

                Sometimes they happen to coincide. Other times they don’t.

                We can admire an actor for doing a skillful job of impersonating a heroic character. It does take talent to pull it off, for which they are handsomely rewarded.

                But it really mustn’t be confused with actually being the heroic character.

                Liam Neeson for example, portrayed a heroic father who used all his resourcefulness to rescue his daughter from modern day slavers, including guns.

                Yet he has sanctimoniously demanded gun control, aka victim disarmament.

                • So true. Re: Taken.

                  I heard Luc Besson initially wrote the script to take place in Texas, it was to be a short 10 minute long.

                  Starting at about the one minute mark Liam Neesons instructions to his daughter went like this.

                  I need you to go into the bedroom and get the AR15 and all the extra ammo out of the drawer.

                  Pull the circuit breakers and kneel behind the big oak desk near the front door.

                  I’ve called someone to come over right away and I’ve paid them $10k as a retariner and another 60k will be paid if they keep you alive and deliver you to me.

                  The movie ends in a hail of gunfire as she shoots dead both of the intruders and runs out of the apartment and far away as fast as she can.

                  15 minutes later the private muscle arrives and delivers her to Liam and then they go out to a steakhouse to celebrate the whole crazy day.

                  Taken
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJiml5xzK68

            • No unusual amount of hurricanes have struck the US. In the last decade there have been many fewer than the yearly average. Just that they get more coverage and cause more damage due to weak house construction standards.

        • > “Many of them are shown rotted away to the point where they are essentially skeletons. Without muscle tissue, how can they possibly stand, let alone walk?” <

          So, Keith Richards is in this show?

    • Hi Nunzio, “This will be life for those who drink the Kool-Aid…or for all of us if we don’t get out soon…. ” Do you mean getting out of this country? If so, you and other interested people should join my e-mail list. Given the fact that this government is making it harder to emigrate from this country, it is a good idea to encrypt all communications between us. Proton Mail automatically encrypts messages, is based outside of the U.S., and is free. It would be a good idea for everyone to use Proton Mail for minor everyday message sending too, as that would overburden nosy federal spook agencies. https://protonmail.com/ . People interested in possibly becoming an expat should email me at [email protected] .

      • Hi, Brian,

        Yes, that’s exactly what I mean- leave this country for the second or third world. Between the dictatorial gov’t here and the dysfunctional corrupted melting-pot culture here, we’re essentially in the same boat as the Germans in 30’s. A few had the sense to leave; the rest just stayed and suffered or even participated.

        We’ve already far surpassed the Nazis in tyranny.

        Thanks for the invite. Hard to find the time now, but come the cold weather I have to…uhh…what’s the email equivalent of “give you a jingle”? (I don’t say “Hit you up”) 🙂

    • LOL! Good one!

      “….could be working on…”
      “…by 2022…”
      “Might”
      “Maybe”.”Would like to”
      “Could be”.

      “If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas”.

      (This one’s right up there with “We’ll all be living in colonies on the Moon by the year 2000”. Paradise and perfection are always right around the corner. Technology is going to solve all of our problems. ‘cept so far, it’s just making them worse.)

  6. I’ll wait for the Hydrogen powered Hybrid ( IC + Fuel Cell ) that can be fueled by my home Hydrogen production system using nothing but water & electricity from Solar panel + wind turbine on my garage roof.

    • Hydrogen’s so expensive to make, even UNCLE has apparently given up on it! (They were actually subsidizing THAT for a while, a decade or so ago, until they got onboard with ‘lektrik cars….)

  8. Electric cars can only become practical if the real, original Tesla ideas are worked out, such as electrical energy being broadcast like radio signals. An electrically powered car that didn’t need several hundred pounds of batteries with their attendant charging issues would be practical and maybe even fun to drive.

    • The disruptive technologies Nikola worked on would defeat the purpose of electric cars. Electric cars are to create more centralized system. More command and control.

      If we start pulling electricity from the ether to motivate electric cars the control grid is done for. Even if there is successful solar and wind. The problem with these two generation methods is that if something ever works well enough for the price it will have the capacity to be scaled down to individual size.

      I don’t think workable electric cars will be allowed when and if the time comes. The breakthroughs to make them workable are more disruptive than gasoline powered cars ever were.

      • I’d even take it one step further, Brent. I’d say that the pushing of all of these technological pie-in-the-sky schemes which are all so reliant on huge infrastructures, when they can’t even maintain the old simplistic infrastructure, is a plan for the total destruction of any semblance of infrastructure- old school and hi-tech.

        If they can’t sustain the old and simple…how on earth would they maintain things which are infinitely more complex, delicate and expensive? And by even trying to establish the higher-tech infrastructure, it will just mean that even less attention will be paid to the old infrastructure.

        It’s a plan to create a Mad Max world, where the serfs will only want to live in cities, where they are “protected” and have everything provided for; and such people do not care about privacy or rights or freedom…….

      • Yes, it would defeat the government’s purpose, but my statement is still true. The only way EVs will be practical is with the advent of broadcast energy.

      • Or miniaturized on board electrical generation, by means of tiny nuclear reactors.

        That of course would liberate everyone again, and undermine the attempt to chain everyone to the central government grid.

  9. Actually, a gasoline car has the above advantage only in 5% of cases. In 95% of cases people drive through the day less than 100 miles. Under <100 circumstances it is a gasoline car that sucks, because you have to go to the gas station. With EV you just drive home and charge there without wasting the time to go to the station.
    However, Eric is right on spot that there is a challange with the distances over 200 miles, where gasoline car has the obvious advantage. The only solution: stronger and cheaper batteries plus even faster superchargers that would take place of some of the gas stations (other would simply disappear, as the lesser amount of superchargers is actually needed, because in comparision to gas stations they are only needed over longer distances).
    And that will happen some day finally. Probably sooner than later.

    • People buy vehicles based on their maximum need not their average need. Furthermore I hate keeping up after batteries and keeping them charged. So once a week or whatever I spend five minutes or so getting gasoline. For my power equipment it’s once every four to six months. Just for my tools and electronics I spend more time keeping after their batteries.

      Batteries can only charge so fast without damaging the cells. Depending on chemistry the charge must also taper to get a full charge. Again to prevent damaging the cells.

      • Roland, I am not denying that. Let the people choose, agree.
        Brent – actually going to a gasoline station is not 5 minutes. 5 minutes is just physically filling the tank. Batteries can be a pain, but do not have to be. Inductive charging is the future. Also plugging in can be full automated. You just park your car as usual in your garage, and it charges itself. No carrying, no worrying, no thinking. Also not going to the station.
        In the city electric cars are actually better on every level.
        As Eric writes, the problem of longer distances remains. But I see those things as solveable within next 10 years. Simply by stronger (and cheaper) batteries. Gasoline cars are slowly, but continuously losing the momentum over EVs. The end of gasoline cars is just a matter of time. The government is making a mistake by unnecessarily speeding up the process. But it does not mean that process would not happen eventually anyway.

        • Hi Thomas,

          You write:

          “Gasoline cars are slowly, but continuously losing the momentum over EVs.”

          Nonsense. EVs are being pushed by government mandates and heavily subsidized by the government.

          That is all.

          Take away the subsidies and the price of a typical EV jumps by 20-30 percent to $40k at least. For a pathetic piece of crap like a Nissan Leaf.

          That automatically excludes two-thirds of the market because two-thirds of the people out there cannot afford the equivalent of a loaded BMW 3 or Lexus ES350. And few of those who could afford it would spend $40k on a Nissan Leaf. A “decent” EV would cost much more than $40k.

          Electric cars are being pushed – cost no object – by rich dicks like Elon Musk, who profit from the mandates and milk the subsidies.

        • Thomas, I’m glad you favor letting EVs sink or swim in the marketplace. But the point Eric makes in this article is that they are being forced on us, both by decree and by the propaganda that bamboozles people who are not as well informed as you. So, I’m not sure what the point is in speculating that “The end of gasoline cars is just a matter of time.” It just adds momentum to the bamboozlement.

        • How does it take more than five minutes? I filled up the tank on my way to work today. I left about three minutes earlier than I normally do and got to work two minutes later than I normally do without stopping. How did it take more than five minutes?

          I also have video running when I drive. There is a timer. It is about five minutes longer when I stop for fuel on my way home or way in. Neither the camera or the clock on the dash lie to me. I don’t time myself at the station but only maintain an awareness of the total transpired time. It’s about five minutes longer when I stop for fuel.

          Are you even aware how power wasting inductive charging is or even its current limits? I’ve developed battery product on and off throughout my career so I have a a good understanding of battery technology. Cars are no different in this regard, just bigger packs, often higher voltages, certainly higher currents, but the principles remain the same. In the case of Tesla Motors even their cells are even the same as many electronic devices and power tools. (TM uses many small standard Li-Ion cells)

          These problems were to be solved ‘in the next ten years’ since the 1970s. They are not solvable because they are inherent to chemical batteries. They can get better but they will not be solved. It’s like making CO2 a pollutant. It’s a fundamental product of combustion, no way around it. That’s what we are dealing with regards to batteries.

          For the electric automobile to succeed batteries as we know them will need to be replaced by a disruptive technology. This technology may already exist. It may not. But if were put forth to the public the disruption economically and political power wise would be too great for the powers to be. This is why I say it may already exist and witness reports of experimental aircraft out west.

          I digress, but my point is the workable electric car will be less decentralized than the hydrocarbon powered car, not more. Batteries and charging from the grid are more centralized than hydrocarbons. Yes, I understand the nature of fuel distribution but hydrocarbon fuels can be made at home by those who want to and modify their vehicles appropriately.

        • Oh, it’s always “the future”….. Electric cars will charge in 30 seconds and have a 400 mile range, and we’ll live in colonies on the Moon. Ah, the glorious future!

          Just as long as you volunteer to live near one of the new generating facilities, Thomas, which will be dotting the countryside to supply all of this electricity so that the people in the cities can enjoy nice fresh air….

          Maybe people in the cities should have to put-up with the pitfalls that living in congested artificial environments brings, instead of forcing others to endure the negative impacts of their lifestyles, such as their polution…..

        • Hi Thomas,

          “In the city electric cars are actually better on every level…You just park your car as usual in your garage, and it charges itself. No carrying, no worrying, no thinking. Also not going to the station.”

          Except a significant percentage of city dwellers do not have access to a garage or any simple way of charging the car. Moreover, the infrastructure to charge more than the few EV’s on the road simply does not exist, and the cost of providing it would be astronomical. Why do EV advocates fail to notice these obvious issues?

          The irony is that the only place EV’s make any sense is in cities, but access to a personal charger (garage, carport, etc…) is very restricted in bigger cities. So, an EV does not make sense for many people in cities. To a few it does, and that’s fine. But, the idea that EV’s are inevitable, even without government “nudging” just seems ridiculous.

          Jeremy

    • Hi Thomas,

      Actually, a gas-engined car has the advantage all the time – because it is always ready to go, any distance, without having to worry about its range or refueling time. Electric cars require constantly thinking about their range/recharge times; a spur of the moment trip, driving more than the car’s viable range – even getting caught in traffic and needing to run the AC or the heat – etc. No issues with a gas-engined car.

      You write about “wasting time” at a gas station. Five minutes. As opposed to 30-45 minutes at the very least – and much more frequently.

      It slays me that anyone can – with a straight face – talk about “saving time” by driving an EV.

      It is of a piece with “saving money” by purchasing one.

      • Over 100 years ago half of cars sold were electric. EVs lost the competetive battle with gasoline cars because of one reason and one reason only: range and refill/recharge.
        Since the constant development of ion-lithium business we a have disruption coming and this competetive advantage on part of gasoline is about to slowly diminish. I agree that over longer distances gasoline has the advantage. But in the city, it does not. Of course if you need a car readily available to give you 200 miles trips that were not planned, then gasoline is a definite winner still. Many of the car owners do not need that. And never thinking or worrying about refill/recharge for short distances (100 miles per day) is in the case of EVs.
        Yet even the case of readily available that you mention is about to come anyway. I guess in 10 years or so. But the upcoming technological development since ion-lithium seems to be not constrained by some physical limits. So I guess in 10 years EVs will be much closer to 1000 miles range.

        • Hi Thomas,

          I’ve been a working automotive journalist for more than 25 years. This battery bullshit is the same now as it was in ’95.

          The range has improved; recharge issues remain the same.

          Cost is still prohibitive.

          There is no economic case to be made for the electric car. It is more expensive to buy/operate (these two must be factored together) and it is impaired functionally in serious ways.

          The fact remains: Take away the subsidies and the mandates and the EV “market” collapses.

          Why are EVs being pushed so aggressively when they are inferior to gasoline-engined cars?

          It is insane to posit that the average guy is going to sign up for a $30,000 EV (least expensive, heavily subsidized) that can’t go nearly as far as a gas-engined car that costs half as much and which only needs 5 minutes to refuel to 100 percent range vs. a best-case 30-45 minute wait to recharge to 80 percent.

          Can I have a baggie of whatever it is you’re smoking?

          • Eric, not only is the BS the same as in ’95, it’s the same as in ’75. I was naive back then, and remember thinking that the car I had probably would be the last petroleum-powered one I would ever own. I had a friend whose dad invested a ton of money in an electric car company in the late ’70s. I assume he lost it all.

            • Hi Roland,

              Yup.

              I remember driving the GM EV1 (Impact) in the ’90s. Same problems as now. Way too expensive, for openers. Musk fanbois are either rich themselves or obtuse; they buy $40,000-plus cars like we buy candy bars – so what’s the big deal? They have no comprehension of cost as it relates to most people’s lives.

              They are also delusional or willfully evasive about the functional problems.

              It’s a form of mania, a sickness.

              • But it’s only $XXX a month!

                I have started to see woe-is-me stories on automobile loans. Highlight…. some dufus with bad credit with $4,000 in cash buys a used truck for over $20K and at outrageous rate of interest. He eventually can’t make the payments and the truck gets repo’d. Who’s to blame? The credit company of course! Never mind that $4K can buy a useful vehicle and he would own it outright.

                But I get why he did it. A vehicle he owned would have made him look poor. Credit, the illusion of wealth is everything today.

            • If EVs could generate electricity on their own somehow, and totally bypass the problem of unacceptably weak batteries, I really wouldn’t mind switching from IC engine vehicles.

              Would I miss the visceral thrill of the exhaust note from an IC engine? I would. but the thrill of eerily silent supercar able to do zero to 60 in 3 or 4 seconds would go a long way to make up for it.

              Most important of all, a motor vehicle that is essentially a glorified slot car has got to be the ultimate expression of the “KISS Principle”.

              All the problems with current IC engines way too complex for car buffs to work on, without millions of dollars in diagnostic equipment, would go away.

              Cars would revert to being incredibly simple again. Simple enough for any DIYer who has ever repaired the electric motor in his egg beater or table saw to take on.

              • Bevin,

                Modern brushless motors are entirely software controlled. They are simple mechanically but they are entirely electronic. They either work or they don’t. To work on them, even small ones in power tools and such requires expensive diagnostic equipment. Some of it common like oscilloscopes and multimeters but the former are not cheap.

                The systems of electric cars are already hiding behind software locks. Sure perhaps the gateway is a laptop with the right software but good luck getting it. There’s no OBD2 for electric cars. It’s all proprietary. Gasoline cars by law must have most of their diagnostic functions standardized and open and much of the rest published so they can be accessed 3rd party tool manufacture.

                And yes once there is zero point or something close to it electric cars become viable. They also end up becoming socially dangerous then because it means energy that cannot be controlled or metered.

                • Funny; power tools and such have gone the same way as the stupid cars.

                  I have some power tools from the 1950’s that were handed down to me- and they were refugees from the scrap yard- not gently cared for heirlooms or anything- and I’ve been using them for over 30 years.

                  Big deal, you have to replace the brushes once every decade or two- it’s easy, and costs under $10 for the parts!

                  Those tools also have a lot more power/torque than their modern brushless equivalents.

                  There’s a Youtuber, whose channel name is “AvE”, who tears apart modern and old-school tools, and explores the guts- he is quite interesting- has a very good understanding of machining; metalurgy; electronics; etc.

                  It’s amazing: Some of even the most expensive top-brand tools which may be made fairly well overall, all seem to have built-in failure points/weak links- usually in the electronics, which will cause the tool to fail long before the mechanical componetns are worn out.

                  Just like cars worked just fine for 70 years without electronics and software…so did tools. With the tools they used the excuse of saving us the trouble of having to change brushes once every decade, to make tools instead dependent on electronics, which guarantee that the tools don’t even last a decade.

                  Now they do the same with cars….only the EPA provides the excuses.

                  Just look at those Teslas. They are totally dependent upon software and electronics…and even when something minor goes wrong, the car has toc be flatbedded to hoopty hospital.

                  • The electric cars do have to be. They have no point otherwise.

                    They could not achieve even the performance they have nor would they satisfy their real purpose.

                  • I’m not talking about their political purpose.

                    I’m talking about what they could be under an ancap free market, and the right breakthrough in electrical generation or storage.

                  • Actually, Mr. Bevin, electric cars do have to be complicated.

                    Just for one example: Controlling the speed of an electric motor, up until recently, required the use of a large mechanical controller, which did not offer infinitely variable speeds nor good modulation (Basically the same device used as a throttle on subway trains).

                    Now speed control is achieved via electronics, controlled by software. The advent of this control is largely what makes modern electric cars possible.

                    This is one case where technology actually provides a usable benefit….but, also, as usual, at the cost of greatly increased complexity and greater repair costs, etc.

                    Ditto the batteries: They are high-tech. Require exacting manufacturing techniques; and to get the best performance and life from them, more high-tech must be used in their charging systems, and even in the way power is drawn from them.

                    These modern electric cars rely on state-of-the-art technology in every facet. Even if it weren’t for all the government-mandated crap, and the luxury features, etc. (Which of course, add even more complexity), it’s not as if you could just take an electric motor and a battery and have a simple electric car.

                    And even with all of that technology, these cars are still so impractical.

                    The only “simple” electric cars, are things like this:
                    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mOcdGo2pqjo/maxresdefault.jpg

                    • Currently, of course.

                      We have a mixed economy that is crippling innovation.

                      Who knows what amazing technological breakthroughs would be possible without Big Government chains hobbling entrepreneurs?

                      This could be a case of Bastiat’s “what is unseen”.

                    • The key point is we can’t really know for certain how competing technologies would have evolved if the market had really been free, instead of managed by crony corporatism.

                    • True, Bevin- but there are physical constraints to what is possible- and often, complex and delicate computerized systems are the only way to “cheat” the physical and/or economic constraints.

                      I think what often happens, is that the artificiial need for these things is created by gov’t regulation, thus necessitating the highly complex/delicate/control-prone technologies- whereas without those gov’t regulations, the old simple stuff which we had all along, would have continued to work just fine.

                      You can make a gasoline or diesel car VERY simple, and durable. It is only gov’t which made it necessary to complicate those vehicles, and which now is making these impractical electric cars viable- whereas they would probably not be viable on a truly free market, because IC engined cars would cheaper and more durable; and the electrics would be even more expensive than they already are without tax credits.

                    • Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying.

                      Eric recently reminded us just how simply internal combustion engine cars could be, had Big Brother not mandated absurd pollution and safety standards for them.

                      The cars would be far lighter, the engines would be far simpler, the power to weight ratios would be far higher, high performance would have been achieved at far lower cost.

                      The same holds true for electric vehicles.

                      The Achilles Heel of electric vehicles has been batteries that simply can’t do what’s necessary to match the range of gasoline or diesel vehicles.

                      But absent the thousands of constraints on the marketplace that stand in the way of innovation, who knows what electric car breakthroughs might have been made?

                      This is a variant of Bastiat’s “what is unseen”.

                      The parable of the broken window was introduced by Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas (That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen) to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is not actually a net benefit to society. The parable, also known as the broken window fallacy or glazier’s fallacy, seeks to show how opportunity costs, as well as the law of unintended consequences, affect economic activity in ways that are “unseen” or ignored.

                      Money squandered on unreasonable pollution and safety regulations is money made unavailable for R&D into technologically wiser alternatives.

                    • Ah! Then we are in agreement, my dear Bevin. Sorry for misunderstanding.

                      When one looks at cars from the 1930’s or 40’s, or even some of the “economy” cars into the 1980’s, one is reminded of just how little an IC needs to be perfectly viable.

                      Just the engine and a carburetor; a starter, and an alternator (Many of the older cars had generators instead of alternators, which could do double duty and function as a starter and a means of charging the battery!)….oh, and a simple ignition system, like spark plugs and a distributor.

                      You’d open the hood, even of a small Japanese car from the early 80’s, and instead of the engine compartment being packed like a sardine can, there was plenty of open space.

                      Cheap and easy to repair, because everything was easily accessible and out in the open; and it didn’t take tens of thousands of dollars worth of diagnostic equip,emt to find a problem, because electro-mechanical things either worked or they didn’t; and there were a small and finite number of things to check to see where the problem lied.

                      When you’ve seen THAT work so well, and then see what is foisted upon us today, which in many cases can not even achieve what that simple old technology achieved, it is just sickening.

                      Now they even have electronically fuel-injected riding lawn mowers. Forget about the simple task of rebuilding a carburetor or tuning it as things wear, so that the machine will continue to function efficiently; or when it breaks. Now you take it to the dealer when it won’t start, and if it’s more than a few years old, it’s time for a new one, because it’s not worth the hundreds or thousands of dollars in shop charges to repair what you used to be to do yourself on an old mower.

                      Truly sickening!

        • Hi Thomas,

          You write:

          “Over 100 years ago half of cars sold were electric. EVs lost the competetive battle with gasoline cars because of one reason and one reason only: range and refill/recharge.”

          Yes, indeed.

          As if those were minor considerations!

          And – you forget the other issue that is extremely relevant: Cost.

          Today’s electric cars cannot compete with gas-engined cars on that score. They have to tout other things – such as quickness and style.

          Fine, but then we are talking about expensive toys. A Tesla is an electric high-performance car. It is not about saving money, about lowering the cost of driving. It makes it more expensive to drive.

          God, my teeth ache this morning!

  10. Eric, I always thought you were being a bit hyperbolic when you claimed that the end goal is banning self-controlled transportation for the plebes, but I think you may be right.

    Some “professor” in the UK is now saying that electric cars aren’t good enough, and that all cars need to be banned, because electric cars still emit things like brake dust and tire dust from wear, and there’s no safe limit for that. Cars must simply be banned.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/04/fewer-cars-not-electric-cars-beat-air-pollution-says-top-uk-adviser-prof-frank-kelly

    • Hi OP,

      If you’d traveled in the circles I have and met some of these creatures in person, you’d be hyperbolic, too. Their aim is nothing less than a global “company town” in which we are all under the control and observation of a technocratic elite.

      • I had contact with these Malthusian assholes back in the 80s, as part of the work I was involved in.

        That is what is so frustrating about this: “they” are out in the open, declaring what they will do, they have been for decades now, and far from resisting, the general population runs into their arms, embracing the ideology and technology that will first enslave them and then cull them permanently.

      • eric, I said a lot of this in the early 70s. I watched as Vietnam went from an unknown place to something that dominated the American psyche.

        I kept looking for the sense of it. The only thing that made sense I could find, was creating a war state and enslaving and robbing the masses.

        There paid for were people back then who took that view and extrapolated the future. It was obvious when you did that, prison planet was in the offing.

        Bought and paid for sociologists as well as media told the same lies although back then there were people who spoke truth to power.

        Those people were vilified to the point they were effectively silenced, even if they had to disappear or be trumped up on some charges or have accidents the non sheeple couldn’t deny.

        At my age, I couldn’t have known this started in earnest during WWll.

        Everything since has been scripted FOR the PTB by evil and greedy people including the very people who communists pretending to fight same.

        It was during this period only the Democratic and Republican parties dominated the political scene. The MSM was instrumental in making sure the masses thought there were differences in the two. Some elderly politicians knew it to be a lie and they were relentlessly attacked, denigrated and removed from the scene.

        Since JFK, there has been only incremental differences in presidents…..and the ensuing double party(s).

    • Things are worse that I suspect if they are now saying it in public. It has generally been kept as a not so shrouded understanding not to be shared outside of the club. Often not to even be shared with people who believe in transit, biking, and so on. Because most of those people are motorists and won’t give up their cars.

  11. Yup, I remember those Disco Fever days! I was a child back then. I wonder if I could find the manufacturer of the rubber band propeller powered balsa wood airplane I used to have? I could build an enlarged version of one for those clovers if the price is right. I would even set up a bit coin account up for them to buy one from me.

    • I guess it should be a foregone conclusion that they don’t have those rubber-band balsa planes anymore….. Those things were great! Ahhh…the simple pleasures!

      Yes, what’s with the Bitcoin? People lauding it as an alternative to the gov’t’s worthless currency…but Bitcoin is just as worthless…having no intrinsic value. More proof that people never learn.

    • Brian, I loved those planes and everyone else seemed to also. We bought countless of them and I found some really large rubber bands for them that had a couple hundred in a pack. We’d double and triple them and make the planes haul ass. After a while we were taking tiny strips of wood off broken ones and beefing up new ones to be able to stand “more bands ”
      Never found anything I couldn’t soup up.
      Right away it became plain to make sure the pit bulls were in the house or kennel

      They could here one a mile away. They got to know even when you were speaking of them and then knocked off our code for them.

      Kmart used to close them out in the fall along with kites. We’d buy their entire stock of both.

      You could find us outside at night just chilling with a cold one flying our modified kites

      Soon we had great big fishing reels loaded to the max with line. Those really large kite spools took forever to bring in all that line.

      My ex BIL and his buddies took a bunch of butcher paper and butcher twine and built a huge kite. After it was perfected they tied a flashlight to it, went to water tower hill in town and had the whole town going.

      What a wonderful world it was before 911 and Fatherland Insecurity.

      • ESM,

        I reckon you can still get them, or better yet, design and build your own. Of course the price of balsa is absurd now, but isn’t everything. I remember making a framework of balsa wood and stretching and glueing paper over the result, just like a real vintage airplane…and then adding propellers and rubber bands and painting them. Too broke to afford R/C stuff but back then one could also afford model rockets. WRT EVs, blatant attempt on a global level to put the serfs back in their places.

        • I made an open-cockpit kayak like that years ago- by stretching canvas coated with airplane dope over cut-out plywood frames. It was awesome! Took ‘er out in the bay during a small-craft advisory, and that li’l 14’ ‘yak sliced through the waves like a hot knife through butter.

          That was c.1990. I wonder if you can still buy airplane dope today?

  12. My wife and I are originally from Hawaii and are visiting right now. The state gives EVs special licence plates and free 30 day parking at the airport that cost the taxpayers 2.6 million over the last 5 years. I see all the hundreds (thousands)of them on the road and think “who can afford these things?” Teslas, Beemers, all kinds of expensive EVs. Electricity is super expensive in Hawaii too, there’s a lot of PV solar. And Honolulu’s electric rail project is 3 billion in the hole and they haven’t even gotten to the hard part, building it through downtown. Total recipe for disaster.

    • This reminds me of the recycling center that a small town near us operates. A story in the newspaper a few years ago detailed what it was costing the city to run, which I recall was somewhere around $60,000 a year. That was despite the income from selling the aluminum cans and stuff it collected (which it paid residents nothing for) and a hefty recycling-support surcharge levied on trash haulers for every load they dumped at the city’s landfill.
      The headline? “Mayor Says Recycling Pays.”

  13. One of the big reasons behind the push to EVs is to reduce worldwide CO2 emissions. But unless the world re-embraces nuclear power in a big way, it’s all a pipe dream. The electricity required to charge all those EV batteries will be many gigawatts over what the present grid is capable of generating. Hydro-electric is a clean source but it’s already tapped to capacity. So it would have to come from more coal, oil and NG power stations. A lot more. Problem is, the climate is heating up and I tend to think the scientists are probably correct in identifying CO2 as the biggest culprit. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, through the magic of photosynthesis, CO2 was effectively removed from the atmosphere and stored as carbon in the carbon molecules of wood, coal, oil, and NG. The oxygen was (is) emitted back into the atmosphere. But we humans are voracious users of energy. We extract the chemical energy in hydrocarbons that took hundreds of millions of years to accumulate and the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. Something like this: CO2 + sunlight + 200 millions of years -> C + O2 + energy -> CO2 – energy + 200 years. I’d say human life on earth is doomed. But Elon Musk will become very rich.

  14. Hi Eric.
    Liked your article.
    First, I am a Free-Market Guy.
    Second, Anthro-Progenic Global Warming is the biggest and one of them most dangerous
    Hoaxes in the history of Science.

    That being said,
    I’ve thought about the Electric Car, Electric Motorcycle battery problem for a while.
    You are correct that timing for fast Charging systems is still not acceptable.
    I have thought of only one way this would work and that would be
    have a Standardized Modular Batter System where the Batteries could be
    swapped out quickly, like many batteries in Portable Tools and Phones.

    Then you could have charging systems on the back end.

    I confess. I really like the idea of Electric Cars and Motorcycles.
    For the simple reasons the E-vehicles do not pollute the cities, but more so
    I HATE THE NOISE AND I ESPECIALLY HATE HARLEY MOTORCYCLES.
    My neighbor has an Electric Lawnmower and Edge Trimmer.
    I love them.
    When I can afford them, I will get a set as well.
    I HATE CARS WITH LOWED DEEP-BASED BOOM BOXES.
    I think their owners should loose their driving privileges for a month.

    • Hi Glenux!

      I have trouble imaging the economics of this working – of this being less costly than filling up a gas tank for $30.

      Or possible to accomplish in 5 minutes or so.

      I also wonder about such issues as “bad” or damaged battery packs being swapped out for “good as new.” Who pays for this? How?

      It seems to me the only way this could work – and leaving aside the economic issues above – would be for even more government control and monitoring.

      Imagine it.

      Right now, I can gas up anonymously and hand the guy at the counter a $20 and be on my way. But in an Electric Future, to avoid people trying to exchange abused/damaged battery packs, you’d have to submit to some kind of verification and monitoring regime.

      • I’ve dealt with the standard battery swapping idea before. It’s unworkable. It’s not something like a propane canister. It’s something worth thousands of dollars that is easy to damage and people may modify intentionally. Either for their ideas of better performance or to hide defects.

        Once you’ve accepted a swap of a bad pack there is no way to prove you didn’t damage it, modify it, abuse it, etc. The service would be too costly because of all the overhead to manage it and the losses that will happen despite their best effort.

        Standard battery packs are also very unlikely. Each manufacturer will have price and performance points for their products.

        But imagine the ability to say swap out a cheap chinese made pack with low quality cells for a high end pack with high quality sanyo cells. People would immediately drain a swap company of their high quality packs. Or the swap company could use packs with cheap cells and then nobody would give up their OEM packs.

        It is simply not workable given the present and foreseeable future of battery packs.

        • Well you are obviously an energy racist. Battery lives matter. You should check your fossil fuel privilege and re-educate yourself.

          How dare you discriminate against rechargeable energy sources.

          Internal combustion engines have an unfair advantage due to white male patriarchy.

          Diversity of energy sources is our greatest strength.

          There needs to be reparations and affirmatively charged action until batteries are used in equal proportion to liquid fuels and other right wing energy sources who have gained unfair advantage due to discrimination and systemic oppression.

      • Plus, those batteries weigh hundreds of pounds. You’d need workers and equipment at every station in order to make the swap. Even if Jose and his brother Hose B. are doing it for minimum wage….you’d have to have a virtual old-timey service station at every gas station….ain’t no way that’s ever gonna happen.

        Plus, if a place ends up with a bad battery or two, or all the fresh ones are gone and it’ll be a while before others are charged….back to the same old waiting game.

        Self-driving cars, and electric cars: Two of the whackiest, mostc absurd schemes EVER….and only todayc is the general population stupid enough to fall for it, en mass!

  15. I had to laugh. I came across a video on Youtube recently, made by some douchebag who “loves her Tesla”. The video was apparently part of a series she was doing, chronicling a trip or vacation or something, which she was taking via the car.

    In this particular vid, she was stopping for the night at a motel. It was late. There were spaces at the motel where one could charge an EV, but they were all occupied by IC cars, as it was late and all the spaces were taken, and everyone was asleep.

    So…the douchebag had to go online and find a place where she could plug her car in- which happened to be a gas station c. 5 miles away. She drives the car to the gas station, and spends the night in the car, because it takes 5 hours to charge it.

    And yet she is going on and on about how great it is to own a $70K electric car…and how great Teslas are!

    Things have to go south soon, because a world full of such people can not sustain itself. Can you imagine? People willing to pay such a price- financially; time-wise; hassle-wise…..and being HAPPY about it and thinking it’s a good thing??? Buy stock in Kool-Aid, because these people are drinking it up!

    • I would not be surprised to find these people are sponsored by tesla and what you are watching is a paid advertisement.

      On the upside just think how much she saved sleeping in the car vs paying for the hotel room. Tesla continues to save her money!!

      • I believe she paid for the motel anyway… It was reserved, and she had checked in…. INSANE!!!!

        This is an example of the religious zeal these idiots have for their religion of global warming, rainbows and unicorn farts.

        I wonder if Tesla would even be so bold as to sponsor such demented propaganda, for fear that even the most deluded moron would see through it?

        • Yeah, I’m pretty sure she paid for the motel, ’cause she was rambling on about how the chargers were just put there as a convenience, and the motel had nothing to do with them, other than giving permission to let them be there.

    • Wow, to a normal person that would be a tutorial on why you should NOT get an electric vehicle; yeah, I’d rather sleep in my car than a climate controlled motel room just so I can feel superior to all the mundanes out here. I hope this person is an outlier because if she is the wave of the future civilization is over and out. Some of these uber enviros won’t be happy until we’re all back to living in caves. I wish they’d just off themselves and be done with it, let the rest of us live out our lives in comfort.
      I’m retired now after 43 years with the local electric utility, and has been mentioned by others here the grid most definitely cannot take much additional load. During heat waves we would regularly have to drop voltage and occasionally load to keep the whole system from crashing down. I still get the occasional robocall from them on really hot days asking everyone nicely to cut back their electricity usage – i.e. shut of your air conditioner, or we’ll have to do it for you. These people have no understanding of science or physics, with most of the nukes around here shuttling down over the next few years where do these meatballs think the power is coming from? Solar panels – hahaha, good luck with that in January. I would love to see a region wide blackout during the Stupor Bowl, that would get their attention. I also regularly get letters from the gas company scolding me for using more energy than my “more efficient” neighbors. Well tough shit, I live in an old (1863) Victorian with high ceilings and it’s been insulated as much as it can be so stuff the guilt trip. I seriously think the next step down the road will be rationing – no heat for you! F it, I’m old,leave me alone and let me fade away peacefully; on the other hand I have a 12 gauge and won’t be afraid to use it if pushed too far.

      • Mike, my sister lives in a smallish town (pop. 12K) near here, where they have already implemented “peak pricing” on the lektricity. They have one hour per month when demand is the highest. You never know when it’s going to be- but if you use electricity during that time, you get reamed- $11 per KW. She lives in a one bedroom apartment, in an area where we have among the cheapest electric in the country, and her bills are averaging $187 per month! By comparison, in my county, where we have an electric co-op, for my 1000 sq. ft. trailer running the A/C 24/7 as it’s been up around 100*F for a while, my most recent bill was $72.

        It’s starting!

  16. Let’s take this a step further. Let’s say that something on the order of 10% of drivers would not mind buying an EXTRA car, a pure electric, for their workday commute. They still keep their Suburban, and their V-6 Accord, for actually going anywhere that is not part of the planned routine. But the commute is the biggest mile-eater, and it’s within range of that second hand Leaf. As long as you charge it at work, and when you get home, it will function for you.

    But how about all those others, that comprise 10% of the market? Will they simply plug into an inexhaustible power supply, that eats as much power every day, as a whole house for something like a week? This is still the country where brown-outs happen when power capacity is taxed. And the e-car adoption rate is well below 1%. Multiply that ten-fold, and what happens? Even if they decided to build a hundred new nuclear power plants (doesn’t everyone want a nuclear plant in their city?) to support the extra usage, that would still be twenty years too late. And I won’t even go into the fact that Russia owns the world market on enriched uranium, and they’re none too happy with the US today.

    There is not enough power capacity to support a 10% electric car fleet, even if people accepted the downsides. And legislation is not going to change this fact, any more than legislating the tide will accomplish anything.

  17. This is why I will go to jail for driving my electric golf cart to the corner store to buy beer. Ridiculous indeed.
    Reminds me of my experiences using battery power tools. You better have 4 chargers, and 4 batteries ready to go. If these things are ever going to work it will require being able to stop at a “gas station” and swap out your dead batter for a live one. That will never happen because you would be swapping a $2000 thing for one that may be in far worse condition.
    A WAY better idea is electric rails on the freeways. The battery (or IC engine) would only be used for the 10 minutes it takes you to get to the freeway. Then you would drive into the lane with the electric rail and pull your power from that.
    In fact, a wheel with a motor could be added to ANY vehicle as easily as changing a tire.
    Were the whole electric car thing NOT a scam – this model would be the one they used.

  18. Great rant as always, Eric. Just one quibble:

    “The reality of EV World would be conga queues that would make the gas lines of the early ’70s (the result of oil embargoes, not lack of oil) seem like a minor irritation in comparison.”

    The gas lines were a result of government actions, not shortage of gasoline per se. Nixon imposed the ridiculous even/odd mandate (you could buy gasoline only every other day based on the parity of your license plate) which panicked people into purchasing gas more often than they otherwise would. In addition, strict price controls were imposed. I was working a short-term gig in Boston in the late ’70’s and it was VERY hard to find a station with gas. But there was one that was always open and always had gas — at $1.57 per gallon. That sounds cheap today, but back then it brought howls of indignation from politicians (and unfortunately most of the populace as well). With great fanfare and much pomposity, that station was shut down. Thanks SO much for protecting me from having too many choices, government!

    Off topic: have you seen this? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40800587 . Diesel cars will get a “free” retrofit in the form of new software. What will that do to performance and fuel economy? Probably make both of them worse. And of course this is being imposed on people who already made a buying decision based on the performance and fuel economy at the time of sale. Now they’re getting the shaft. Thanks again, wonderful government!

    • In the 70’s, they DID try and sell us the idea of “oil shortages”. They [the gubmint) actually said that “We’re running out of oil, because we’ve exhausted the earth’s supply”. National Geographic and other magazines would do articles about it, quoting “scientists”- who of course parroted the gov’t’s BS- explaining how “we’ve exhausted all of the earth’s deposits of oil”…… Even as a kid at the time, I’d laugh. It showed me what a bunch of lying bastards the government is; and how “science” and “journalism” fall in line with whatever they say…and how people continually believe whatever they say, no matter how many times they’ve been fooled in the past.

      “Iraq DIDN’T have WMD’s? Oh. Uhhhh!!! Syria is using gas on their own people! Bomb them! Bomb them!”

      • And as some observer I read recently pointed out, diamonds are scarce, but if you want one, you’ll have no trouble finding a wide selection available for sale on the spot. The difference between diamonds and oil is that one is regulated by the market, while the other is endlessly distorted by the government. When the market regulates, prices rise and fall to ensure that supply meets demand.

    • Hi Bshand,

      Hybrids don’t suffer the gimps of EVs because they carry around a gas engine to recharge their battery packs and power the electric motors.

      But this kind of begs the question, doesn’t it?

      Unless gas prices double, hybrids can’t compete with non-hybrid IC cars. It’s striking to me that as gas prices have fallen, the push (not a market push) for hybrids and EVs has accelerated and grown stronger.

      It’s bizarre. Like a major defense build-up after the war has been won.

        • Hi Bshand,

          The base price of an IC Accord is $22,355. The hybrid starts at $29,605. That’s about a $7,200 up-sell to get the hybrid.

          Yes, I know. The hybrid comes with some additional features and amenities that are not included in the base Accord.

          But now we are talking about features and amenities, not economy.

          And if the object isn’t reducing the cost of ownership, then what is the point, exactly?

          Why not just buy the loaded V6 Accord instead?

          You could buy a nicely optioned (features and amenities) IC Accord and still pay thousands less than you’d pay for the hybrid.

          Some will respond: But the hybrid saves me money on gas! My response is: If you cared about that, you’d care about spending less on the car. It’s absurd to spend $30k-plus on any car and then talk about how much money you are saving on fuel.

          By definition, the cost of gas is not an issue for you. If it were, you would not be spending $30k on a car. You’d spend less on the car – which would leave you with more money for gas.

            • Hi Bshand,

              By all means – everyone should be free to spend their money on whatever they like, including indulgences. But talking about the “economy” of hybrids is like ordering a small diet Coke to go with your Super Sized fries and triple cheeseburger…

              It’s even sillier with electric cars.

              Buy them because you like being “green” or because you like being able to plug in at home (or office) or because you like the technology or even because the car looks good/is quick (Tesla) but once you start to talk about efficiency or economy, you’re off the reservation…

              • I agree. Pure EVs make no sense. Hybrids are mainly a shift of $ into the car or into the gas. And the payback on the former is accelerated by higher gas prices.
                I personally own an ’01 Camry and an ’02 Ranger. Always have driven low mileage older cars. So my choice is to pay low for the vehicle and have plenty of $ to feed it.

                • Same here, bshand!

                  My ’02 Frontier pick-up has saved me thousands because I bought it used and at a price that as low enough (about $7k) that its gas mileage is irrelevant. There is no conceivable scenario I can think of that would save my money by buying a hybrid.

                  I’m not a mathematician but I am not innumerate.

                  Many Americans, unfortunately, are.

              • eric,just because it doesn’t make any financial sense doesn’keep the sheeple from embracing…..anything.

                Take my long deceased parents for instance
                They began needing lots of health care when HMOs were cranking up.

                Of course my dad had worked forever for an electric coop and they had insurance like you can’t get for any price now. Deductible was an afterthought. But HMOs were the greatest thing ever according to them

                I tried to show them once they were only helping to create an unaffordable system

                They couldn’t refute anything I said and seemed to resent the reality I described for .

                It wasn’t long before they wondered out loud why my wife and I had no insurance and why I didn’t have a :good ” job like my dad

                He went from the Army Air force as Mst Sargent to woking at a newspaper to a job that paid more than most to be an office manager

                He quit school after the 4th grade to support his family after his father was killed.

                Of course in the early 70s men returned from Nam glutting the work force market.

                It was a totally different world they were blind to or at least my mother was.

                My dad on the other hand was constantly trying to get decent pay for all the people who were well underpaid that worked there. She knew this but women seem to have a disconnect with reality men aren’t offered

                I had friends getting out of college with hard degrees and great grades who finally threw their hands up and shipped off to great countries like Ethiopia for a couple years with the peace Corp and came back to low pay shitty jobs for years. None of us ever had anything but barely adequate insurance.

          • Just put an electric rail on the freeway. Add a wheel with an electric motor to ANY car (as easy as changing a tire) Of course, this model would put the Auto Manufacturers OUT OF BUSINESS.

            • Hi Johnny,

              Again – who will pay for this? How? The existing highway infrastructure is in disrepair. Where will the money be found to add an electric rail to every mile of Interstate? Or even a third of it?

              Who will maintain this? How will that be paid for?

              What happens when it snows/rains?

              What about the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety issues attending high-voltage rails exposed and at ground level, where the children could get at them?

              And – again – why?

              What is the need for any of this?

              It’s nuts!

              Next, they’ll be pushing everyone to buy a $15,000 solar roof array… in order to “save” on their utility bill.

  20. They should have pushed NG engine power. Much electricity is generated from it now, cut out all the inbetween and power the car directly with NG. The econo-boxes get 40-50 miles per gallon on gas, very simple to convert to NG. No political subsidies needed and that was probably why it was ignored.

    • Hi Billy,

      I agree – I wrote about natural gas a few weeks ago. I drove several NG prototype cars back in the ’90s. They were outstanding. V8 large sedans and SUVs. Not pathetic little shitboxes with no guts.

      But then, I just answered my own question, eh?

      • So eric, are there fueling stations in VA for CNG? We have them in Texas and I see a fair amount of big rigs in them.

        One of the pipeline companies had a fleet of pickups. I asked a driver how he liked the Chevy he was driving. He said you’d not mistake it for a Duramax but it was had plenty power.

        Anyone such as myself who’s owned a propane powered tractor and they’ll tell you the engines go forever. They have virtually no carbon build up so they just go forever…..if they have the right valves. Back in the 60s and 70s Chevy built their pickup engines with sodium filled exhaust valves so the propane engines did well, not so with other brands.

  21. Before this dystopian world ever becomes reality there will be mass rioting in every major city of the world, the likes of which will make events in Venezuela seem tame in comparison.

    • Hi Steve,

      I hope so. It is about time.

      One of the things that most depresses me about the situation is that so many men especially will spend endless time debating the merits of some got-damned fuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttball team but not a second on the serious political-social-cultural decay all around them.

    • Riots? Not if things go to plan. People will cheer it into being. Their memory of anything else will quickly fade. It was always like ‘this’ they’ll tell you when you recount stories of how things were. You’ll just be another kook. Press too hard and you’ll be taken away.

      Other places they try too fast. Here there’s been a good earnest 110 years of conditioning with decades of ground work before that. If they push too fast now they’ll wreck all that work.

  22. Eric, there is one aspect of the whole electric car charade you left out of your spot on rant: I’ve seen the numbers worked up in an article, cant remember where or when, proving htat if only ten percent of the private passenger vehicles in the US were taken off the road and replaced with electric. it would bring the entire electirc powre distribution system crashing down. The additional load to our present system to distribute and deliver that much more electric energy would have generating plants and transmission lines over capacity to the point of utter collapse. Don;t feel badly, though…. you’re not the only oe who is missiing this minor” factoid…. they who build and push the electric car scam are well aware of it, but choose to ignore it… or, worse, collude together to prevent the public from knowing what is certainly coming.

    The Constitutioin names and defines only one crime…. I rather think this behaviour fits that descriptioin well…..

    • Tionico, you are exactly correct. I know an engineer with an electric utility. He was given the job of studying the effect of electric cars on the grid and found exactly what you said. To a first order, even a handful of ecars on a city block would blow the transformer. Multiply that across the country. Who’d paying for that externality? Then go up the grid from there.

      Gasoline is concentrated energy. It’s efficient. Plugging in a battery, then carrying that heavy, dirty thing around with you is not.

      One more evil program to destroy the middle class.

    • Hi Tionico,

      Hat tip, sir. There are so many major problems with this electric car con it is sometimes hard to catalog all of them at the same time!

      • There’s a YouTube video of your favorite leech and his electric big rig and future plans of a network of charging stations for same. Of course he doesn’t address the source of the power but we all know he plans for the rest of us to pay for everything.

    • The whole electric car idea totally ignores the reality that the electricity has to come from somewhere, be it coal fired plants, gas fired, wind-farms (which annually kill millions of birds), or hydro-electric, which cost fortunes to build and require decades of environmental studies and permits. Basically, the entire environmental movement is driven by technologically ignorant people who couldn’t even accurately describe the working principle of a screw-driver or would call an electrician to change a light-bulb. The term “environmentalist” equals ignoramus. Every environmentalist should be forced to have a license-plate frame on his car with the warning, “DANGER! High Doltage!”

  23. I was thinking about this today. An electric car might be fine if you lived near a major airport and had a house with a garage. At least it would be, back 20 years ago when you could just walk up to a ticket counter and pay cash for the next flight to wherever. Then just rent a car when you arrive at your destination, again, paying cash and no hassles. Keep your electric car at home, plugged in and ready to go for all the around town tasks and maybe a short drive on a nice day.

    But that’s all a pipe dream now. Forget about buying a plane ticket on the day of departure, Uncle needs to make sure you’re on the “approved” list. And renting a car? That low, low price of $29/day quickly becomes $60+ just with all the taxes. Not to mention a bunch of rules and regulations as to where you can and cannot drive the vehicle (which is actually fine, since you’re renting it, but not exactly freedom). And none of it works with cash, and ID is required every step of the way. At least now you can take an Uber, as long as you’ve registered a credit card with their app and agreed to share your location with them. That’s OK too, unless Uncle subpoenas Uber’s database on a fishing expedition. Then they might happen to put you at the scene of an unsolved crime.

  25. CloverYou do understand that in the future, people won’t own electric cars? They will be self-driving and people will use them thru Uber and others. Fleets of self-driving electric cars will be owned by companies. People will never own them, just use them to get from point a to point b. On the extremely rare occasion of doing a road trip, they can rent a gas guzzler, drive it themselves and probably have to pay ridiculous insurance rates.

    • Hi Barry,

      I understand that’s their plan – and have been trying to explain that to people. That the object is to reduce people to debt-serf renters; to eliminate owning anything more substantial than the clothes on their back.

      And to take away whatever freedom of action – mobility-wise – they still manage to enjoy.

      What a horrific, ghastly future.

      • Eric, you should probably start thinking about diversifying and start up a lawn mower/garden tractor enthusiast page. In the near-future, that’s all the fun us former car guys will be able to have and afford.

        • Hi Handler,

          They’re gonna go for those, too. In fact, it’ll be worse. Mowers still have carbs, no cats – and are not computer controlled.

          Imagine what a fuel-injected, ECU-controlled, catalyst-equipped push mower is going to cost us…

          • You’re probably right; it’s wishful thinking. The effeminate beta males will eventually become the majority of the male population, anyway. So, anything that requires manual labor or being mechanically inclined is out of the question for them. I guess we’ll see rentable, automated, and electric lawn mowers, too. Or maybe not. These “men” will probably want tiny apartments since that’s what the UN has been advocating for decades. You know individuals owning too much land and having a lawn violates their evil, anti-human religion.

            • There will be two ways to cut the grass – a traditional person of Hispanic descent will come and do it for them or there will be lawn robots that will be programmed by the company who sells the robot lawnmowers for a fee. Problem solved.

          • Eric, I suspect they already have. Briggs & Stratton, a once-proud company, now produces junk. All of their small engines for mass consumption have primer bulbs instead of chokes, so reliable starting is a thing of the past.
            When I bought a new tractor a few years ago, I was fortunate to get a Deere 4320, one of the last ones they made where the exhaust comes out the turbocharger and right through the muffler, the way God intended it.

            • Hi Roland,

              Yes – ugh – I am hip to this. Luckily, both my push and riding mower are lovingly cared-for older models that I hope I can keep running for many years to come. These also lack the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety idiot proofing that now afflicts new power equipment.

          • Eric, I was looking at some new zero-turn mowers recently. I was horrified to see that some are now coming with FUEL-INJECTED engines! Yeah….the little V-twin lawnmower engines- and of course, if a nother couple of years I’m sure it will filter down to the single-cylinder push mower engines too.

            Watching some videos recently, one guy was comparing two zero-turns -both current model years- and he remarked how one was a pig on gas. What he didn’t mention (or maybe didn’t even realize) was that one was fuel-injected…and one was carburated. The FI one was the pig!!!!

            But can you imagine- lawn equipment? They sit; get gummed up [not mine..]; get dirt inside. Up till now, any yutz could just pop off the carb and clean it/rebuild it, and problem solved. With FI? HAhahaha! Delicate stuff with electronics…. Any trouble? It’s off to the stealership to get ‘er fixed for hundreds of dollars!

            They’re actually putting computers in these things now, to control the FI, of course and to manage all of the annoying “saaaaafety features”!!!!!!

            I can’t stand it anymore!

          • I am sure many mowers have catalysts today. Even many models of hand-held equipment has catalysts. You can’t tell visually without knowing tiny details because they are inside the muffler.

  26. You have this exactly backwards. Rather than long lines, gas stations are going out of business.

    Replaced by every restaurant, place of business, garage, and home having a charger. Clover

    I use a 3 prong outlet in my garage to charge my i3 every few days. It’s glorious. Like charging a cell phone. Cheap, fast, easy.

    • Hi Brian,

      First, it takes hour to recharge – absent a “fast” charger. The suggestion that people – most people – will put up with this or even be able to put up with this is ludicrous.

      Second, it will take billions to build the infrastructure needed to make “fast” chargers readily available. Who is going to pay for this? Who is going to put up with waiting 30-45 minutes to recharge – to 80 percent! – and then have a car that – best case – travels perhaps 50 percent as far as almost any IC powered car can travel on a full tank?

      And – why?

      What is the need for this?

      IC cars work better than EVs. They cost less than EVs.

      The only thing EVs do better is run silent – and for people who like cars, that is a negative, not a plus.

      Your i3 is a $42,000 (to start) virtue signaling toy.

      Most people haven’t got $40,000 or even $30,000 to spend on a toy. Most people have budgets and need a car that gets them from A to B economically and reliably, with as little hassle as possible.

      Electric cars do not do that.

      A well-equipped Corolla costs half what you paid for your i3 and is superior to it in every objective way.

      Like most of the people who debate me on this question, you are blinded by your affluence – or willingness to shoulder titanic debt – for the sake of a politically correct “answer” to a problem that does not exist.

      The fact remains: Take away the subsidies and the entire EV “industry” collapses tomorrow.

    • “I use a 3 prong outlet in my garage to charge my i3 every few days.”

      Liar. It’s so easy to spot you shills who like to troll online discussions.

    • Right now, you charge your car in your garage for the rate. Next, you will be charged more for the electricity as they will only sell specialized chargers that bill to your credit card or an account via wifi or satellite. Come on, you cant be so blind as to not see this coming. The free ride is going to end. I’ll stick to my polluting gas guzzling car and be quite happy. If someone tries to take it away, I have something waiting.

      • Hi Swamp!

        Amen. These fools – there is no other word – can’t see it coming. They actually think there won’t be new and higher taxes imposed on electricity; that – even leaving aside machinations – the added load on the grid/capacity will simply be dealt with for freeeeeeeeee!

        Same goes for the “network of charging stations.” Imbeciles! This is a billion-dollar infrastructure thing. Where is the money going to come from?

        From Uncle?

        Where does Uncle get his money?

      • Right-on, Swampy! I was going to say the very same thing! People always seem to fall for the “free” or “low introductory price” thing. Just like with credit cards with 0% interest for the first 6 months (Then 24% thereafter…). Give ’em free/cheap ‘lektricity now….once a significant number of people have the expensive electric turds, and there are no alternatives because modern IC cars are exercises in planned obsolescence, and throw-aways- Then suddenly electricity makes gas look cheap by comparison- and there is no competition; and no option to pay cash (Hmmm….funny; the timing on that, eh?).

        (((I WILL get back to the “Theocracy” thread, soon as things slow down here…)))

  27. Politically the question is not one of whether EVs are viable. The average Pol would rather you not have a car at all! The EV is just a sop to prevent you from hanging them from the nearest lamp post.

    • I came across a Prager University video yesterday featuring an auto journalist by the name of Lauren Fix. I don’t know anything about her, and I don’t care for some of ideals Prager espouses, but I checked it out because the title seemed to mesh with what Eric has been saying here. The premise of the video was that there was a concerted effort by TPTB to bring about the end of transportation as we have come to know it because it represents personal freedom.

      https://www.prageru.com/courses/political-science/war-cars

      I’m a relative newcomer here, but I’ve enjoyed my time. It’s been an eye-opening experience to say the least. Especially troubling, at first, was putting the pieces together to see the future into which we are being deliberately pushed. It was just interesting to me to see that notion put forth on a more mainstream and widely-viewed platform.

      Thanks for what you do here, Eric! It is much-needed and appreciated.

  28. I think in the end they want everyone (apart from the billionaires) living in apartments in cities and using bicycles. It will then just be the billionaires in their mansions and the plebs. No middle class left at all.

    In California, they are already removing the cats eyes in the middle of the road that help with night driving. Ostensibly this is because they interfere with self-driving cars. So now it is extremely dangerous to drive at night.

    They are also reducing the number of lanes open on highways – I forget why. So commutes are longer and this will force people to live close together.

    • There won’t be any bicycles, at least not without government tracking and permission. Too much range and too difficult to control. Only very limited government transit in the end game.

      • Heh, I don’t know if they’d even need to go that far, Brent. What with virtually all kids growing up now as couch potatoes, most of ’em, even when they’re 20, have so little stamina, strength or patience; and their health is so compromised by all the vaccines, drugs and junk food, that they probably couldn’t ride a bicycle more than a few blocks anyway. We had the advantage of having grown up on bikes….they may never even have ridden one as a child.

        • The current crop of 20 somethings certainly can’t hack it as part of traffic and abhors the idea of vehicular bicycling. Never mind in the 1950s it was taught to children. When some idiot argues that vehicular bicycling is dangerous or too difficult or whatever excuse they have I point them to youtube or archive.org and the 1950s film “Drive Your Bike”.

  29. One of the disappointing (keep in mind I have very very very low expectations) parts of the Trump regime is that it is doing nothing to stop the war against cars from happening. The jihad against VW continues, the insane mileage and “safety” requirements haven’t been rolled back (only studied and likely forgotten as the next Mooch comes and goes).

    What truly sucks, the car companies, even if the rules got backed off for a while, will still plan on the coming regulations. They do know that in 4 or 8 years there will like be a new president, and its likely a Bernie type almost certainly. And they will crank up the heat no matter what the cost is. Including banning IC.

  30. Government should get out of the way of this one now. I love my electric car.. I wish I could get an electric pickup too.. The Ford Ranger electric got scuppered by Chevron buying up the battery company with the patents.. Then refusing to sell them in the US..

    I don’t want any government influence on this, let us make the choice to buy what we want. No subsidies for e-car manufacturers or buyers, and no spending a chunk of the defense budget on protecting the worlds oil fields either.

    • “The Ford Ranger electric got scuppered by Chevron buying up the battery company with the patents.. Then refusing to sell them in the US.”
      C’mon, yet another conspiracy nut. So Ford couldn’t have acquired batteries anywhere else?

      • It was propagated by hobbyists upset that they can’t buy a one-off NiMH battery pack for their DIY EV projects.

        The company that holds those patents would have been more than willing to make NiMH packs, but they’re only profitable making 10,000+ units at a time.

        Of course, now one can buy or build their own lithium-ion packs that are far superior to the old NiMH packs.

        Many people are doing this (see youtube) as a cheaper alternative to Tesla’s Powerwall for home energy storage.

  31. Eh. That’s your problem. Oil is a strategic asset so Uncle gets first, second and last dibs. Gas engines are essential for keeping “enemies” at bay. And everyone in Washington is important enough to warrant having a gasser.

    • I, along with many others, don’t believe the “protecting the oil supply ‘ bs. The military /industrial /warfare /welfare just needs anew enemy, plain and simple.

      How else to make fabulous profits? Trump used 60 missiles at $M1.4 each. ..and that’s just the missile.

      A huge military uses everything civilians do and much more.

      The weapons are just the cherry on top.

      Last night listening to Pandora the old Commander Cody song, Semi Truck came on and I thought of electric cars.

      I could move close to a major market like DFW and haul a load of electric cars from where they stopped to a yard where I’d charge them.

      At least when that semi won’t start a couple cars and battery cables and it’s on the road again.

      When those people with dead cars in bitter cold feel like they have had 3 bennies or wish they had, that ride to the gated community in my van and their cars going to a nice safe place to be recharged and only cost them $650 will seem like a bargain.

      Then again, maybe I should go to the Hamptons and double the price.

      I wonder how fast the electric car market is growing in Alaska. Never mind, I’ve never chained a truck in my life and don’t want to. When it ices over or snows deep in tx. we just wait however long it takes to thaw.

    • The primary goal as eight pointed out is spending on the military. The secondary objective is to keep the middle east countries poor and keep too much oil from reaching the market or at least in the hands of the big oil companies. War is a Racket after all.

  33. Common folk will be limited to foot traffic and sail fawns. Both of which can be easily controlled, curbed, manipulated, etc. Independent mobility was what built up this country’s economic strength throughout the 20th century. BTW, if you want to see an example of automated transportation in real-life application, look at railroad operations. Take particular note that it takes hundreds of millions of dollars for just a handful of railroads to safely implement such automation. It also takes many, many people to monitor thos systems and the rail traffic which uses it. Lastly, remember it is rail traffic, restricted to specific directions, destinations, and time schedules. You will quickly realize that, considering all the decades they have spent getting to this point, not to mention the expense and considerable coordinated effort and equipment required, automated personal transport, i.e cars, is insanely untenable in any way, shape, or form. I approached the subject with a railroad systems manager, who is one of my customers, and his response was just that……it is a psychotic pipe dream and a public con that has no infrastructure to even begin to support itself. He pointed out, quite historically, that even electric rail transport has been cut back to only subways and inter-city commuter transport. Without its independent charging source, the diesel powerplant, the entire nation’s mass freight transportation would die overnight. And this is in an industry that has just a few companies in control of lots of money and few people to muddle with the decision making as far as the use of the company resources. Imagine what would happen trying to coordinate several million independent automobiles which have no common destination, owner, finances, maintenance schedules, fueling resources, etc, etc. In his words “it would be chaos beyond anyone’s imagination”.
    I believe, as Eric pointed out, the EV pushers already know all of this as well. The attempt to EV the general public is BS, and tant-amount to getting everyone back on the disco floor! What’s worse, it’s not even remotely entertaining.

  34. Hi Eric,

    Here in the UK you dont realise how retarded the idea of electric only cars mandated for everyone is – In the US most people have driveways. Here in cities or urban areas a very high percentage of people live in flats, and even those in houses have street parking, – so what people are supposed to run an extension cord from their house down the street ?? (I doubt they could ever put charge points on each slot as they could never even get parking meters on every slot here, like they do in the US).

    I think your second point s what it is…. a deliberately calculated plan to keep the plebs away from cars….. force them to survive by using uber sort of services where they are constantly monitored and movement restricted and kept within certain bounds…… Unfortunately I think this push for electrics will just make all cars go the way of the horse for common people….. sad as I remember driving around the country as a kid, going over state borders, stopping places, meeting people, getting souvenirs…. dont know if coming generations will ever be able to experience that………

    • Exactly. It is to take away the private passenger automobile from most everyone. Same theory behind wind and solar. It’s about pushing something that requires central management and rationing for the sake of power.

      If tomorrow some private company out of the blue announced mass production of a solar cell system for the home that produced enough power regardless of the weather and cost say $1500 installed you can bet the government would step in and within a week pass legislation that made it illegal or otherwise stomp that company out of existence.

      Mass market solar, zero point, electric cars, what have you are not meant to be. We’re supposed to do without and if someone figures any of it out the political wind on the subject will simply change to put a stop to it. Never mind what they have been saying for decades. Look what has already happened with wind. Oh it sort-of-works-in-some-places so now it chops birds, is ugly, and makes annoying moving shadows. Well if it is anywhere politicians and their friends go anyway.

      It’s about power. Only what serves their ends for the moment.

      • So true – here in Europe its so obvious its not even funny….. so they tax us in every way possible for “co2 emmissions”……. pushing up fuel and energy costs (to the extent now that many poor and elderly people now cannot afford to heat their homes in the winter)…… but on the other hand over the past few years Chinese solar panels have dropped quite drastically in price…. so what does the EU do about it – implements tariffs on the import of Chinese solar panels to make them cost as much as European ones (and essentially not economically feasible)!!!! You couldn’t make this nonsense up…

        • There was an author who did make up this sort of stuff back in the early twentieth century… Franz Kafka. Reading his stiff in the mid-1960’s was frightening…. and yet, he was incredibly prescient.

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