I’ve written about the media’s active complicity in pushing the EV Agenda. This includes the car media, which seems to have very few car people behind the bylines. Car people being people who regard cars as more than transportation – as a service or otherwise. And who – as journalists – ought at least to be asking relevant questions to get answers relevant to people who consider cars more than mere transportation.
Instead, they operate a kind of EV Pravda – the old Soviet journal that had as much “truth” in it as – well… Automotive News.
Which recently ran an article (here) about the “huge increase” in sales of Volvo’s plug-in hybrids and that “demand” was grossly “underestimated” for them. It hagiographically quotes Volvo’s CEO Hakan Samuelsson, who talks of “20 to 25 percent” increases in sales.
Hakan, as an aside, is the guy who thinks all cars should be electronically speed limited – and even prevented (also electronically) from “speeding” at all.
By 2021, all new Volvos will be speed limited.
Well, anyhow, the “huge increase” in Volvo’s plug-in hybrid sales is actually pretty small – and mostly not here.
Volvo sold 26,800 plug-in hybrids last year . . . in Europe. In the United States, Volvo only sold 11,850 cars – including hybrid cars. See here.
How many of those 11,850 were hybrids? Automotive News doesn’t say. Perhaps because it wouldn’t come across as tsunami-like as 26,800.
Interestingly, Volvo doesn’t separate out hybrid from non-hybrid sales in its media materials, either.
Of course, soon, every car sold by Volvo will be a hybrid (or a full-time electric) car. Volvo has so decided.
But it’s still only about 12,000 cars – which amounts to barely a blip on the U.S. radar, as far as car sales are concerned.
For a real sales tsunami, check out how many 1500 series pick-ups Ford sells. About 900,000 of them every year – to 32 million Americans.
See here.
That’s what the market wants.
The government, of course, wants something else.
The job of Automotive News – and the rest of the media amen corner – is to facilitate this wanting of something else. One of their tactics used toward that end is to make hybrids and EVs seem much more popular than they are, to social-pressure people into buying them.
Everyone wants to be like everyone else, so the theory (rightly) has it. There’s a reason why almost everyone under the age of 35 has a tattoo – and it’s not because they want to express their individuality.
America is heavily controlled by virtue signaling and the major organs decide what is virtuous, and then signal it.
Hybrids and electric cars are very virtuous.
They are also very expensive – typically, several thousand dollars more to buy than an otherwise similar car without the plug. Without the nudge, it is very hard to sway most people to “invest” in a plug-in hybrid (much less an EV) since it is very doubtful it will ever save them a dime and is likely to cost them a great deal more than that.
Accordingly, merely monetary considerations must be shunted to the background, ideally out of even peripheral vision – and the virtues signaled instead.
Even that, however, isn’t enough.
Which is why – in Europe – people have no choice about buying hybrids or EVs. The various governments – in Germany, in France and in Sweden – are decreeing it.
This accounts for the 26,800 Hakan crows about and which Automotive News doesn’t qualify.
Some will remember the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams and the catchphrase: “If you build it, they will come.”
This has been modified a bit with regard to plug-in hybrids and electric cars. The new line is: “If the government forces us, we’ll build it.”
And you will pay for it.
The whole thing, in sum, is an artificial construct – a kind of automotive Potemkin Village we’re all supposed to pretend is an actual boom town when it’s nothing more than a facade and a fraud, but with a key difference.
Grigory Potemkin – who constructed the facades along the banks of the Dnieper River to impress his paramour, Catherine the Great, then empress of Russia – didn’t expect the peasants he dragooned into building the facades to pretend they were actually houses, much less live in them.
It was for show only.
The EV Agenda is for real. There is a determined push – you can feel it – to get people to accept EVs (and their partial-EV cousins, hybrids) despite absence of any sound reason (e.g., costs less, easier to use/more convenient) for people to do so and many that weigh heavily against.
But you won’t read about that in Automotive News.
. . .
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EV is all garbage until it kills someone, then it’s hilarity on stilts.
But when it destroys auto racing as we know it, it’s a crime. Here’s a take from Autosport.com on Formula 1 (the March 31 Bahrain race), which is devolving into Formula E.
“After stopping on the entry of Turn 2 with “power unit issues”, his car’s energy recovery system alert light turned red, signifying the car was “electrically unsafe”.
“[Daniel] Ricciardo [driver for Renault] was told by the team to shut down the engine and the electrical system and “to jump from the car”.
He was told not to touch the car, which the stewards noted is “the normal safety procedure in such circumstances to avoid potential electrocution”.
They said Ricciardo felt it would be dangerous to try to replace the steering wheel in these circumstances.”
Welcome to Formula 1 and EV: No sound, no fury, no mechanical movement — only the threat of electrocution.
Racing electric cars….
After the race, it takes a while to determine the winner- as the winner is not the one who crosses the finish lione first- but is determined by a complex formula adding up social credits; carbon credits, and points for poise while virtue-signaling.
Nunz,
Maybe you’re speaking tongue in cheek. If not, as a Formula E aficionado, the races are decided the same way as they are in F1, NASCAR, IndyCar, etc.: whoever crosses the line first, wins. It doesn’t ALWAYS work out that way due to penalties, DQs, etc. that the stewards hand out; in that case, the next closest finisher wins. But yeah, barring any penalties, in FE, whoever crosses the line first wins.
Now, Mark, how on earth could anyone other than those ebil white male Christian heterosexual capitalist NRA/KKK members win a race if they really did what YOU described? Silly! 😉
As I understand it, F1 is using hybrid power trains; basically, they’re a high powered Prius on steroids. Anyway, I watched the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier today. They showed replays of both Riccardo and Hulkenberg losing power; both of their engines gave out. The one driver (I don’t remember who now) was shown trailing smoke seconds before his engine died. They didn’t play the Renault team radio for either Riccardo or Hulkenberg, so I don’t know what the drivers or team said. The commentators said that it sounded like an ignition or electrical system issue. Then, when they showed the replay of the driver trailing smoke, they said it was serious, which I took to mean a blown motor; usually, when a motor is losing power while trailing smoke, it usually means it’s blown.
Unfortunately, here in the USA, ESPN or ESPN2 carry a feed from Sky Sports, and due to time constraints, don’t normally carry the program till the end; they often cut away after the podium ceremony and post race interviews. IOW, they may have talked about Renault’s engine failures in more detail, but I wouldn’t have seen it since EPSN2 cut away before the Sky Sports commentators found out more to pass along.
So, which coverage do you like better? Did you like when Speedvision carried the world feed as Bob Varsha, David Hobbs, and Sam Posey would comment on it? Or do you prefer ESPN’s carriage of the Sky Sports coverage? I like both, but I wish ESPN would stay with Sky Sports until the end…
I’d like to see an end to the EV subsidies. That said, I’m curious as to where and how EV technology will progress, and progress it will. I think that EVs will become cheaper with time, because improvements will be made in the batteries, drivetrains, and the power electronics. We’ve seen this sort of thing multiple times with new technologies in the past, and I think we’ll see it in EVs too.
I’m old enough to remember when TV video recorders/players were new; I remember VHS vs. Betamax. I’m betraying my age here-ha! The then new VCRs cost THOUSANDS of dollars; only the rich could afford them initially. Before finally being supplanted by DVD players, VCRs were dirt cheap and anyone could afford them; I gave one to my late mother that cost a little over $100. I remember when electronic calculators were a novelty. They could only add, subtract, multiply, and divide while costing HUNDREDS of dollars in the early 1970s-and we thought that was impressive back then! Nowadays, we can go out buy graphing calculators for a hundred dollars or so; that is to say we can buy calculators that are significantly more powerful vs. those of 40 years ago, and we can buy them for less-in both nominal and real terms. My final example is the PCs we use to get on here and pontificate. They used to cost buku bucks and couldn’t do much. Remember having to take a floppy disk to load the program you were going to use? Now, we can get a laptop that has MORE power than the mainframes of a few decades ago; again, we’re seeing much more capability for much less money. There’s no reason to think that the same will not happen with EVs.
Secondly, though many of you guys aren’t into it, there’s an all electric racing series: the ABB FIA Formula E Series. It was created with two aims in mind: 1) to show that EVs can be fast and fun; and 2) provide a laboratory for new innovations in EV technology. When Jaguar returned to motorsports after a 14 year hiatus, the chose FE; they did so with the express intent of perfecting technologies that can be applied to their hybrid and EV road cars. Nissan, Audi, BMW, and Mahindra are among the other big auto manufacturers involved in the series. Porsche and Mercedes are slated to join next season. Do you realize that there are MORE manufacturers involved in FE than there are in F1, IndyCar, and LMP-1 combined? It’s true! With all these resources (both financial and intellectual) being applied to EV technology, there are bound to be improvements-especially when done in a racing context. It’s a truism that, if you want a problem solved, you put racers to work on it. Well, there are a lot of racers working on EV technology, so expect it to improve rapidly, both in terms of capability and cost.
As an aside, my uncle told me that, for his local driving, he was thinking of buying a Nissan Leaf. I told him about Formula E and how Nissan is involved in the series. I told him about the improvements of the Gen II car vs. the old Gen I car. I told him that if he wants to buy an EV, wait a few years; by then, the capabilities will increase while the price will decrease as a result of what Nissan will learn in FE.
My point is this: let’s wait and see how this EV thing plays out. I do think subsidies should be ended, and that EVs should stand on their OWN MERITS. That said, given the history of technology development in other things and the fact that there are many TALENTED racers working to perfect EVs, I think that we’ll see less expensive and more capable EVs in the near future.
The political theory is that subsidy gets things going and then the cost reduction process begins. However, that means that there aren’t fundamental issues to begin with.
The electric car failed a century or so ago because of recharge time, range, and cost. A century later with billions of government “investment” and the electric car has the same problems of recharge time, range, and cost.
It is a fundamental issue with chemical batteries and it is not going away until chemical batteries are no longer required. It may be mitigated but it won’t be going away. And I don’t expect prices to decline much even if costs to manufacture do because electric cars need to produce business sustaining profit to have a future. Any and all cost reductions will need to go to profit for quite some time.
Hi Brent,
“The political theory is that subsidy gets things going and then the cost reduction process begins.”
Ah, the infant industry theory. It’s remarkable how these industries never reach adolescence, let alone maturity.
Cheers,
Jeremy
The media always makes it looks like mass electrics are just around the corner, and people are dying to buy them and are just waiting for slightly better options. And in cities like london people genuinely believe that. One thing they have no idea is for the past many decades, the worlds best selling cars aren’t some green hatchback or something like the Prius (as practical as it is) – they are actually cars like the Ford F150!!!
Got luck getting the millions of F150 (and other 1500 truck) buyers to go to electric!!!!
Hi Nasir,
Yup. I’ve been at this – covering the car business – for going on 30 years now and the changes I have seen in the general coverage are nothing less than bizarre and depressing, mixed with enraging. My own theory as to why has to do with the co-option of the car press (along with the general press) by a handful of big corporations, who make sure a certain line is toe’d. That and a general drift away from car culture as mass culture, replaced by adulation of “tech” and virtue-sgnaling competitions over saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety and so forth.
I think on the bright side – some kids now are doing amazing stuff on Youtube…. check out some of the offroading or racing videos… or of guys fixing/rebuilding stuff…. and by the popularity, it does seem that deep down many people still want to see that. Stick to Youtube – it will cheer you up!
The mainstream car press (along with the rest of the MSM) is really digging its own grave here….
I find the ‘kids’ on different forums but there’s this cognitive dissonance that prevents them from seeing that everything they cheer for from uncle and their belief that uncle granted us safe and clean cars and we need ever more of it is what spoils their fun and makes life more difficult for them.
I never thought I’d agree with you, but so much of this. I deal with this mentality constantly and it gets rather annoying after a while. It’s like I said before… whatever remains of car culture is chock full of people who idolize Japan for the street scene it used to have, while caring for nothing but “safety” and “climate change” in the present day. One of the worst cases I’ve ever seen is a homosexual, British, atheist, software engineer (that right there should tell you how likely he is to ever have a correct opinion on anything) who apparently used to be a backroad racer but is now a road safety maven who think I’m an omnicidal maniac for not wanting to go scouting without a radar detector, or even for accelerating quickly away from lights!
It may be worth mentioning that a lot of these people either are bicyclists themselves or support bicycling. I’m not sure about this specific guy, though I know that at one point he was building some kind of stupid little electric motorbike for his own use.
(Come to think of it, could this be another case of a bicyclist by day, racer by night siding with bicycling when the two came in conflict?)
Really Chuck?
That may be the last time I read anything you have typed.
They’ll have a tough time selling Volvos or any EVs other than for commuter/town cars in Texas and most of the west. And the 30-60 minute chargings? In a world of instant gratification, how will they sell that? Of course making it mandatory will work, like buying a loaf of bread in the old USSR. You wait or else.
But in world where Boeing can make a new jet that uh, crashes on takeoff due to a um, software/hardware bug, well that’s not going to be an easy sell. The FAA “outsourced” the approvals to a “private contractor”, i.e. Boeing, so of course it was properly certified. Just how many deaths will it take for the “self driving EVs” of the future before the scam is up? The era of Trust Us is rapidly diminishing. Or so I hope.
Guess that’s why Volvol only sells 11K cars a year in the US lately….
Bet it won’t be lomng till they withdraw from the US market entirely- ’cause it’s not worth staying for 11,000 cars…..
I wouldn’t bet on them withdrawing from the American market-not when the Chinese are behind them. Geely, the Chinese car maker, owns Volvo. I don’t look for them to go anywhere.
Good point, MM! But I dunno- only 11K Volvos sold here in a year now….and soon they will be making nothing but electrics….. Looks like they’ll do O-K in China….but I don’t see their market share going up here- only down. I could be wrong though….
I haven’t been following Volvo since the mid 1970s. Back when they made good cars, I couldn’t drive. After I could drive, Volvo lost their way. First, they went after the Yuppie demographic, making them too expensive for mot people. Then, Ford owned them for a while, and now Geely owns them. Until if and when they can return to their roots (i.e. building solid, durable, reliable, practical, and safe cars for a good value like they did back in the day), I don’t see Volvo improving their market share.
I’ll bet Volvo sold more cars per year here back in the 70’s and 80’s than they do today. When I was a kid (Like ya said, when they made ’em good) I’d see them all over the place, every day. I wouldn’t have minded having one’a them 240’s when I first started driving (Yeah, I was a pretty conservative kid!)- instead, I had a first generation Plymouth Duster with the Slant-6….and I’d crank the oldies. I think they got the idea for Al Bundy from young me!
Back in the day a 240 were barely be BROKEN IN at 100k miles! If Volvo started making cars like the old 240 again, they’d have no problem selling them. That was a car that represented a GREAT VALUE…
Nobody gets to live out in the country in the planned future.
Sure. Who needs farmers and ranchers? We can get our food at the grocery store.
Machines will grow the food for the most part and a lot less food will be required in the desired future.
Are you one of “them” or just particularly depressed right now?
Just spelling out that these ‘faults’ are not faults when the various agendas are puzzle pieced into an overall picture.
Well, it’s going to be One Hell of a Fight.
The “natives” out west here have been getting pretty uppity the past few years (mostly getting away with it if you don’t plead guilty or get shot), and I think now the façade is gone that “peaceful protest” does any good.
Brent, the fedguv started moving people out of the country in earnest in the Big Depression and has done everything it can to mass people together ever since.
OTOH, I knew people my grandparents age and older who didn’t understand what the Depression really was. They were self-sufficient and poor, poor as in not having a lot of cash or “stuff”. They ate what they raised and traded for things they didn’t make….which wasn’t a great deal. I still see gasoline washing machines here and there on old farmsteads and even after they got electrification, sometimes not until the late 60’s, the service was some tiny wire like # 12 and 120 V.
But you’re right about the future and there is a concerted effort to starve people out of rural locations. It’s working too.
It’s funny: during the last big housing bust, property values around here actually stayed steady or up a little because of people wanting to escape the cities and find a “prepper” homestead in the hills.
I think running people off the land is going to work about as well as confiscating guns.
Same here, No One, but not because of preppers and city-escapees (The latter of which I was)- but rather because there never was a ‘bubble’ here, so, no bubble to burst; and since this is a very rural area which stills thrives on small family agriculture, and the resultant steady economy such creates in the surrounding towns; and is not affected too much by the big banks, and big corps…..the cheap land really had nowhere to go but up- as it did.
And yet, so many fools in the small towns want to be like “all the other places”, and would rather have a sea of parking lots with minimum-wage fast-food jobs, rather than embrace the agriculture and small private business economy where the average small person can still start from scratch and easily have a small farm or business without going into massive debt. No, they just want to show up and put in the hours in air-conditioned box and get a check and go home and watch TV- so they vote for all the rose-colred promises that the politicians make, which are going to “pave the streets with gold”- but of course, only benefit the pols and maybe one of their crony-capitalist friends, while raising taxes and killing the quality of life.
Hi No One,
I’m similarly situated – out in the Woods – and wonder the same. Speaking just for me: If it weren’t for having to pay property and “self employment” taxes, I could get by on extremely little. I have enough land to provide myself with food – and fuel (wood). My needs are very modest. Same goes for many of my friends.
Of course, the same was true of the people who lived in these Woods before us – and who were removed by force by Uncle. First, the Indians. Then the Appalachian settlers who lived her for generations … until FDR came along.
Eric wrote: “Car people being people who regard cars as more than transportation – as a service or otherwise. And who – as journalists – ought at least to be asking relevant questions to get answers relevant to people who consider cars more than mere transportation.”
I’ve noticed this in recent years — car mags are getting more and more politically-correct. Nobody questions where the electrical energy is coming from for plug-ins, and what would happen to electric utility plants if everyone was plugging their car in, or why electric/hybrids are “better,” — they just are, so shut up and take it.
LOL, I’m glad I’m old and can laugh at the folly of it all, and probably won’t have to deal with it.
Volvo will surely sell a ton of speed limited vehicles in west Texas since I-20 is a 90 mph parking lot on Friday’s and sometimes Thursdays too. The DPS just drop off since pulling someone over is so dangerous. You can only guess what the speed limiter will be set at. 55 mph should be about right, then you can drive on access roads…..only.
I-10 and I-20 are both 90 mph zones commonly, 100 mph to pass. I-20 in East Texas is a damn racetrack too. People hovering near or below the speed limit cause the horrific wrecks that happen on those stretches. On 59 north in Houston in contraflow commute, I’ve hit 85-90 with cops nearby and they don’t do anything because traffic is so sparse and they are flying at that speed too.
always remember the US does not have enough people. we need tens of millions of 3rd world peasants to save us
They think they’ll assimilate their kids (The kids that prosperous Westerners are no longing having). Assimilate them to what? TPTB have already destroyed the “American Dream”- and these people, not having been groomed by the civilities of the nominal “Christian” world, which once embraced the values of freedom and peace, will not go quietly, like our gentle fathers have.
Volvo’s always marketed to the politically correct, holier-than-thou, eco-dickheads who love to parade their moral superiority over the loutish and socially unaware peasants, who (Gasp!) probably own guns as well.
Volvo to peasants: Get with the program, swine.
The latest addition is the occupant monitoring system.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/volvo-fit-driver-monitoring-systems-standard-early-2020s
Expect it to call the cops if it ‘thinks’ you have been drinking.
Remember when buying a car meant it was for YOUR convenience?
Hi John,
Yup. It makes me wish I could refloat the Tirpitz and shell Gotenberg
If you sell one widget one day, then two the next day, that’s a 100% increase in sales.
I’ve spent the week on the road. Haven’t seen too many Teslas out here in the Mohave desert. No charging stations that I can see here at the Wynn either. Or anywhere. I guess they still need that electricity for the lights and video walls.
What I did see was acres and acres of RV dealerships, storage and on the road around Lake Havasu. Most of them had solar on the roof for charging the electrical house battery. No one had a Tesla, not for a tow vehicle, not for a drag behind vehicle. And if you want AC when the temperature out in the desert gets up to 104º you’d better have some propane in the tank for the generator.
Eric,
Even Alejandro Agag, founder and CEO of the ABB Formula E series and big time EV advocate, said that in order for EVs to be competitive, they’d have to be as good or better than ICE cars. He said that EV prices would have to come down more, while their capabilities increase.
This whole scam will soon hit a gigantic brick wall, two actually;
1. the long term availability (and cost) of lithium batteries
2. the power requirements of the electrical grid to supply the chargers, particularly the “fast” chargers.
Meanwhile, my TDI will go 800+ miles on a tank and takes 5 minutes to fill up.
I think so, too. In addition to the problems you mention, I would add recharge time/throughput at “fast” chargers. Then again, most people have accepted Obamacare and the TSA…
That wall is the goal. The bridges are to be blown up behind the move to EVs. Then it will hit the wall and everyone will be taking the bus.
I’m with you, Brent. This whole thing is designed specifically to fail. I mean, really, are we supposed to believe that the big-wigs are stupid that they really believe that relocating emissions from the tailpipe to a generating facility will somehow “save the planet”, even if the planet needed saving, and even if such beneficence were their true goal?
Nope. The EV hustle is just a way to get rid of all the truly autonomous vehicles- by attrition- and replace them with ones which will be very short-lived and for which there will be no replacements; the transition from personal autonomous transportation…to nothing.
This could never have happened back in the days when we had reporters instead of ‘journalists’ . Reporters- who started out as paperboys, and worked their way up; their edumacation consisted of some cigar-chewing editor telling them: “Hey kid, you ask who, what, why, where, when, and how; writie it down and take a few pictures!”.
No, this could only happen in a day when reporters go into debt to get degrees, and then are shackled for the next forty years to some corp, and the only questions they ask are “am I saying what the boss lady wants me to say?” and “Have I offended any minority or group of weirdos, or shocked anyone’s ears by pointing out the idiocy of the socialism I am promoting, or the obvious logical fails and non-requiters in tripe I am peddling?”.
EVERYTHING is designed to fail. In order to collapse a tower or a civilization every structural point must be compromised and made to fail under an applied stress load.
Redundancies are removed, fail safes disabled. Look at everything that has failed, all of it is designed to. From education to economics, apply eight years of the mahogany godling to an 80 year time frame and we have the society around us.
When personal choices are prohibited, when taxation is made punitive and economic policy fosters insolvency – we witness a collapse. Look to all Utopias. Sowing misery, discouraging individuality and punishing exhibitions of such is all par for the course. What Americans once held as their saving grace – the ability to flee utopias at will is fast becoming an impossibility as both the means to flee and the spreading of utopia leaves us with no where to go and no way to get there.
School has not failed in fact it has done exactly what it was planned to with it’s inception in the early 20th century. It’s long but “The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto” is an AMAZING watch on the subject of schooling. Cheers
School is a perfect example!!!!!
Of course, it has succeeded wildly in doing what it’s propagators intended it to do- but that is the perfect example of “designed to fail” as it’s overt reason it’s existence- “to educate” has failed miserably, if one were so foolish as to believe that that was the real objective.
And the more money they throw at it, the more it “fails” [fails to educate]- but of course, the more it succeeds at it’s covert or real purpose.
The average person looks at it and says “The school system has failed because it fails to educate our children”- and just what we are supposed to think, because the overlords would rather be thought of as ineffectual, inefficient and incompetent, as opposed to corrupt and malicious- which would be the case if the average person knew the real reason for the existence of public schools.
“The education system does what most parents require of it – it keeps the children out of mischief while they’re at work” – Sir Humphrey Appleby
If you guys haven’t – Yes minister is a must watch. Though it is based on the British parliamentary system it hilights how crooked government actually is in in a way you cant stop laughing – The episode on education is here, and perfectly sums up why schools are so messed up. Sir Humphrys discussion is at around 3 minutes into the episode ): https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5tqxef
Hi Nasir!
Good stuff; I hadn’t seen this yet.
Plus, the old reporters had HOLES in the soles of their shoes!
I disagree with word fail. None of is designed to fail. We are simply not understand the real goal. These are all successes. The failures are when we do well in spite of the various programs and agendas. When we finds a ways around uncle’s edicts.
We cannot describe them as failures or stupidity because that allows the system to retain the illusion of a moral high ground, of having good intentions. Their intentions were to do exactly or nearly what occurred in every instance except where they really did fail and people did as they wanted anyway. Now those operating things, managing things, might think this all for the greater good. Break some eggs.
I’ve heard that with people dying from automated things. Have to break some eggs to get to the end result. I’ve never seen that working in ‘evil’ capitalist world. The real one where we compete for customer’s by serving their wants and needs. Kill a customer for the greater good? Never. That attitude is a product of this statistical socialist approach to human life and society. This farming approach.
Every one wonder why one death is too many when they want to control us but they have to ‘break some eggs’ when the central control was the problem? That’s why. They want this managed collective. Deaths are just statistics to them and things to use to manipulate the rest of us into going along with the program.
I am surprised anyone thinks anything happens organically anymore.
TPTB invested billions in psychological research and computer simulations over the last 50 years. A supercomputer can calculate millions of scenarios a day. Not necessarily perfectly but with enough accuracy to give the PTB a very good crystal ball. They know where to nudge and just how much to get the results they want.
The PTB understood it quite well as established science in the 1930s. There is wealth of information about our present day that was written between 1880 and 1940. Once exposed to it there is no other conclusion to reach but this being the result of a deliberate plan.
The powers that be are not so smart. If they were, they would seek to preserve, rather than destroy a system which is self-perpetuating; in which people gladly fork over half of the product of their labor……and instead prefer a world which resembles a filthy work camp full of violent savages.
TPTB of Babylon, Greece, Rome, Ancient China and all of the other former huge empires all thought thgat they had everything under control and could shape the world like a sculptor shapes clay- but such is not the case.
Their plans fall apart; have unintended consequences; etc. Things which are programmed are no smarter than those who programmed them- only capable of doing things faster.
Scenarios change, and unforeseen conditions arise which can not be efficiently reacted to if they were not predicted. There may be more technology today…but there is also much more information to deal with. A lot of the technology they use is just essentially used to counter the increased capabilities which we have due to the increased access to technologies that we have.
People give them too much credit- as if they are all-knowing and all-wise. They are not- but by convincing people that they are, they just gain more power.
This does not mean that everything’s gonna be O-K. Just the opposite. They may not get their way, as they envision it- but they sure are doing a good job of destroying civilization, and many, many lives through the havoc they wreak by trying to gain more and more control and shape the world as they see fit- and while the ultimate result may not be their worldwide slave colony…..it will not be pretty, regardless.
Nunzio,
WTF you talkin’ bout Willis?
“civilization”
That has been destroyed. Long, long time ago.
You speak as if we lived in a time where guns were built with metal and vaginas still had hair.
I’m sorry my friend, but civilization has been destroyed. Today the guns are mostly plastic and a gal has more metal in her face and vagina than a Glock.
This IS the post apocalypse Nunz.
Homicidial maniacs on the road, 80,000 SWAT raids a year (the old numbers), simulating summary execution at schools, airplanes falling from the sky, thousands of concentration camps (sans the Arbeit Macht Frei signs)…
Personally, I blame Eric. Though I’m starting to suspect he has some help from Jeremy as well. ?
Lemme throw in a great TED talk on desertification where it’s estimated that causes much more harm than burning fossil fuels.
https://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI
Absolutely, Tuan- we are well along the way into destruction. Those of us who were around in the 60’s and 70’s got to see a little lingering remnant of civilization, before the destruction was systemic.
It’s just that the replacement will not necessarily be what they necessarily desire…just as it will not be what we desire- but rather, just a mish-mash of savages where the LCD prevails- and hairy guns and metal vaginas! 😀
Hi Brent,
The great Robert Higgs agrees with you.
“People label a policy as a failure because it does not bring about its declared objective. For example, drug policies do not reduce drug use; educational policies do not educate children better; national-security policies do not make Americans more secure; and so forth. The mistake is to take seriously the announced policy objectives, to forget that virtually everything the government does is a fraud. The best way to document the government’s nearly unblemished record of policy success is to follow the money. With very little trouble, you will be able to follow the trail to the individuals and groups who benefit from the policy.”
From his essay: “All Government Policies Succeed in the Long Run”.
http://blog.independent.org/2013/09/13/all-government-policies-succeed-in-the-long-run/
Cheers,
Jeremy
Yep I came to that being the overall conclusion 10, maybe 15 years ago.
It’s one of those lessons that I learned with driving that I soon found repeating everywhere else.
Guys, guys,
You’re missing the point…
“Designed to fail” means that the overt reason for the existence of some policy or agenda is just a ruse to hide the REAL objective, which remains covert.
In the case of the EV agenda, the overt goal presented to the public is to “reduce emissions and save the planet by replacing some ICE cars with electrics and hybrids”. And that agenda is designed to fail, because the real agenda is to rid the world of personal ICE vehicles, and then personal autonomous transportation entirely, by replacing ICE vehicles with EVs which will quickly become economically and physically non-viable.
So the overt plan “fails” as it was designed to- since it was just a ruse to hide the real agenda from the eyes of the public- but that “failure” was the planned objective of those who initiated the plan- so in-fact, it was not a “failure” to them.
Just like the plan to impose gun control to “reduce crime and shootings”- which of course is a massive failure in regard to such “goals”- but has accomplished just what it’s promoters REALLY intended……..
But if “the overt goal… is to “reduce emissions and save the planet”, and “the real agenda is to rid the world of personal ICE vehicles” then their overt goal, in a roundabout way, will eventually succeed. No?
Steve,
…only kif the planet really needed saving; and if that could be accomplished by ridding the world of personal vehicles whose main emission is CO2- which of course is not a harmful emission- in-fact, that is how you usually easily spot programs designed to fail: TYhey all seem to involve the convincing ofd the average schmoe that something good is bad, or vise-versa; or other glaring lapses or contradictions of scads of evidence to the contrary. Like “gun control”- gee…what has happened to all of the cities, states and countries that have disarmed the general public? Crime radically increased- but those who push the scheme, and fools who are too narrow-sighted to ever truly look beyond the TV screen can conveniently ignoe that. (Just ask some of the Aussies who post here what happened in ‘Straya…. 🙁 )
but why would the car companies be onboard with an agenda that will put them out of business? I have not see a real man in my entire life stand up to these white hating communists. if I was a CEO of VW when the US racketeers went after them with massive fines I would have said I am closing every VW dealership in the US and no more parts will be shipped there. you deal with all the unemployed and cars that cant be fixed
SPQR70AD.
“but why would the car companies be onboard with an agenda that will put them out of business?”
What makes you think they will be put out of business?
Did you forget “too big to fail?”
Some company has to build the prisons for us to live in. Those factories can be repurposed.
“if I was a CEO of VW when the US…”
That’s why you’re not a CEO of VW. Only approved individuals are allowed to be in that position.
I’d wager a fancy sum that, by the simple virtue of visiting this site, you’re not going to be approved to do much of anything in the very near future.
Perhaps work release, but even that is looking like a big if.
SPQ, what choice do they have? Comply, and be handed subsidies and bailouts and access to the market…..and even protection from competition (If you have to make your cars as expensive, worthless and non-durable as your competition, you are at no disadvantage financially- only morally-0 and what corp has any morals?)
Also, we are not talking about Henry Ford and Walter P. Chrysler directing the empires they built…..we are instead talking about Ivy League whores who just do what is propitious at the moment to comply and keep the money flowing. It’s not their personal bidness- it’s just a bunch of other people’s money- stockholders- and stocks and be bought and sold. 2 years down the road, the Ivy League prick will be working for the [non] competition or an entirely different industry.
PS: That is the evil genius of collectivism: Nobody owns anything- so no one gives a damn; No true property; no moral character- only relativism, which changes as will and circumstances dictate. Robots in human bodies.
PPS: Same thin among the peons: The average “homeowner” only lives in a house for 5-6 years these days…no more real communities- juist transients.
Or they own a “condo” or co-op, where they own something on paper, but have no real say over it.
Now it’s coming to cars: Call an Uber, or have a car subscription instead of buying a car and owning it for 15 years…..
“Nothing to fight or die for”- nothing to live for, either.
“Every one wonder why one death is too many when they want to control us but they have to ‘break some eggs’ when the central control was the problem?”
Great point Brent.
No shame in that Ken. I had to look it up too. Expanding one’s vocabulary is one of the many joys gained from reading Eric’s articles.
True – and also knowledge of history that the mainstream never mentions!… just learnt about Potemkin Villages!!! Thx Eric!
Wow, didn’t know Volvo was that dead in the US……
So they’re Chinese owned, betting the farm on EV, and stepping up safety by limiting speed. Time will tell, but sounds like a bad strategy for the US market.
If “uncle” thinks I’m going to fall for all his BS and nudge me into an EV, uncle can go to hell! I started driving in the mid 80’s and love the sound of a good exhaust system when you floor it. If I want to operate an EV, I’ll pull the one I got in in a box, get the remote and have fun chasing my dogs with it in the back yard.
Amen, Allen!
We’re about the same age, I’m guessing – since we both began driving around the same time. It is so sad to see driving turned into a chore – and cars into a bore.
You Young Whippersnappers! LOL
I am very proud to say my 17 year old daughter appreciates cars and the act of driving. It helped that we got her a 2016 Tiguan off lease, low miles, great warranty and for her she told me that after driving her friends “appliance” cars she appreciated the VW even more. She even saved up and bought a Stage 3 chip for it. I was skeptical but the darn thing seems to do exactly what they claim? I assumed it was a big scam, but I can feel the difference and 3-4 mpg better.
I get great satisfaction knowing that every time I take my 440 cid 71 Charger out on the road, I am actively curtailing the perceived gains of approximately 25 hybrids.
I want a 1960’s muscle car with 2 four barrels that is kind of like flushing a toilet when you put the pedal to the floor.
I hope you intend it to be some huge BB. Back in the middle 60’s a friend had a Vette..pretty salty, hard to take off and not spin around a corner in town. I only drove it when he wanted me to wash it. I kept it very sane and apologized when I’d do more than what looked necessary. The problem being the cam and the other mods on a 327 and high gearing. He’d just laugh and say he did the same, it wasn’t really possible not to. Holley came out with a 950 3 barrel. Supposed to be the hot thing. I’m sure it was for big blocks but it killed that 327. It rain so much better on the small Holley 4 barrel it was unreal. It’s easy to get too much fuel. OTOH, a friend with a 454 pickup highly modified to pull trailers, had a couple small 4 barrels that turned it on all out. It really wasn’t worth a damn partial throttle. Probably the carbs could have been tuned with smaller primaries and done well. Another friend had a 3 deuce 409. It caught fire right in front of me in my parents yard. I put it out and then some friends towed it home. I detest multiple carbs but each to his own. I’d support you to the ends of the earth to kill a good engine.
Volvo……the General Motors of Europe.
Okay,,,I admit it,,, I had to look up ‘hagiographically’….
The most used feature on my Mac is the fully integrated dictionary. Just highlight the word, right click and “look up.” Does the spell check too.
Ken, you’re a saint for admitting that.
No shame in that Ken. I had to look it up too. Expanding one’s vocabulary is one of the many joys gained from reading Eric’s articles.