Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!
Dave asks: I enjoyed your article on Trump’s rescinding of CAFE penalty. My question goes to vehicles now being engineered for worldwide consumption. If governments around the world continue their own push for these standards, how will it affect what we can purchase here in the United States?
Does it make sense to design cars for this country alone? You can see how Euro and Asian companies have spent billions developing EV in order to comply. They’ve now “bought into” this idea because of the handwriting on the wall. Talk to people from Porsche and VW and they talk about how a large percentage of future vehicles will be electric. Thanks for your good work!
My reply: It is already affecting what we can purchase here.
You may have noticed the sudden, weird proliferation of a de facto Universal Engine – the 2.0 liter turbocharged four – in many new cars, transcending class and price. The reason has to do with European “emissions” (italicized because we’re talking about C02, which isn’t an “emission” in the sense of air pollution) standards. It is becoming very hard to sell any car – even higher-end cars – with engines larger than 2.0 liters, at least as mass-market cars.
The electrification thing is another thing. While there is plenty of pressure being applied here to “nudge” us into electric cars, we are not – yet – being forced into them. In Europe, the people are being forced into them via bans on non-electric cars. Which is why all the European brands are “electrifying.” They cannot sell IC cars anymore – or soon won’t be able to.
Which means they will try to make lemonaid out of lemons, but foisting them onto the United States market as well – with Uncle helping, of course.
What’s needed to counteract this is some Orange aid. The car companies – even just one of them – ought to openly defy all of this and appeal directly to buyers. Make the case that in a free country, free people should be free to buy the cars that suit them – and the car companies, to make them.
Laugh – openly, loudly – at the sour-puss “climate change” cult and its useful idiots in Congress and the media.
That’s how to fix this.
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Bring up a subject just to piss me off. I heard Scotty Kilmer doing one of his fast rants. He lives in Houston but he’s yankee through and through and he speaks really fast.
So he’s saying how cars are going and then say of course EV’s are the future(as if that’s some sort of given)and then had the stupidity to say “And now the big trucks will be electric and have a 400 mile range”.
I took the a-hole to task for that. 400 miles maximum would cripple the economy. Everything you have and ever will have comes via truck. The ELD is a game-changer and not a good one. It’s already costing the transportation industry and that will trickle down(that’s a good place to use trickle down since I say it means somebody is pissing down your back)and everything will cost more and drivers won’t take the already too low pay and just do something else. There won’t be anymore “young” drivers since they mainly get fucked hard anyway and the mega corporations work them into the ground for as long as they’ll stay, not long in almost all cases.
Imagine getting 400 miles by not using the a/c when getting loaded or any time you have to stop. My bladder doesn’t always make 400 miles and that’s only 2/3rds of the distance I’d run in a day. On good days I can run 700 miles but those are few and far between. But count on 600+ per day.
And electric trucks will be the ultimate nanny with cams facing the driver and everywhere else. They’ll probably have a fart sensor and warn you about greenhouse gas. I’d drive one though, right to the edge of a big cliff, kick off the brakes and let it roll…..and hopefully Eloi would be at the bottom.