Reader Question: An Electric Car that Makes Sense?

Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply! 

Charles asks: I live in a gated community and we have electric carts we use to drive around our neighborhood and  to the rec center, etc. These are convenient, quiet and actually pretty fun to drive – though they don’t go much faster than about 25 MPH. What are your thoughts on these?

My reply: I think they’re grrrrrrrreat (cue my inner Tony the Tiger) because – as you say – they make sense. Practical and economic sense. There is absolutely a place in a free market for EVs of this type.

The trouble is, we haven’t got a free market.

Which is why all road-going EVs do not make practical or economic sense. They are too costly, which is in part a function of their being so heavy – which they must be in order to pass all the government-mandated saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety fatwas, which are arguably none of the government’s business . . . in a free market/free society. Why shouldn’t you – or I – be free to drive the electric equivalent of an old VW Beetle? Something very light, and so very efficient. A 2,000 lb. electric car would require less energy to go just as as far – and probably a lot farther – than a 4,000 lb. one. It would also cost less, because it could get by with a smaller battery pack… and so on.

But Uncle won’t allow it.

So, instead, we have $30,000 Nissan Leafs and $50,000 Teslas (and all the rest) which make neither practical nor economic sense and so emphasize other things, such as how quick they are and how “cool” they are.

It’s tragic.

If we had a free market, there would be a veritable horn of plenty of options to suit almost every conceivable need and want, ranging from basic transportation appliances that cost less than $10,000 all the way up to the most exotic things imaginable.

Instead, we get a limited choice of Uncle-mandated stuff which suits government’s needs first and maybe ours kinda-sorta.

. . .