What’s it Going to Be?

By
eric
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Something’s got to give – and will, soon.

Odds are it will be us. Giving more money, that is. Our punishment for not buying an electric car. Or put another way – to make it just as expensive for us to continue driving a non-electric car as it is to buy an electric car.

In order to “level the playing field.” Get ready – it’s coming.

It’ll be done in any of several ways. In China, people are allowed to drive non-electric cars, provided they pay an exorbitant  fee – $14,000 – for the privilege. After winning a license plate lottery that allows them to pay the fee.

Winning the lottery can take years. But EVs can be registered immediately . . . and without the punitive fee. You just pay the punitive expense . . . for the EV.

In Western European countries, so-called “polluter pays” taxes are being applied to non-electric cars.

Bans on the use of non-electric cars in certain areas have also been enacted, transforming people’s non-EVs  into UVs . . .

useless vehicles.

Such nudging is going to be necessary here, too – absent some sort of developmental miracle, because EVs as they are – as opposed to how we’re promised they will be – can’t compete on the economic merits.

It’s not a debatable point.

Put aside haggling over the electric car’s functional merits – or the lack thereof. Forget about their supposedly “zero emissions.” These are separate considerations.

The hard deck reality is that most people simply cannot afford electric cars – the least expensive of which (Nissan’s Leaf, reviewed here) starts at $30,000. The rest begin around $35,000 – and ascend from there.

Most people can’t afford a luxury car – which is what EVs are, in terms of what they cost. Which is at least twice as much as a current non-electric economy car.

But enormous numbers of these electrified luxury cars are going to be manufactured regardless of people’s ability to buy them – because of the willful refusal of the car industry to acknowledge the economic hard deck.

What will happen to all of these unaffordable EVs?

Tesla has already mopped-up most of the virtue-signaling affluent who can afford to virtue signal. Electric or not, the market for cars that cost more than $40,000 (the price of the least expensive Tesla, the Model 3) is much smaller than the market for cars that cost $20,000.

And the market for cars that cost more than $40,000 – which is most EVs – is even smaller. Especially when you take into account the peripheral but effectively unavoidable costs of EV ownership – including the $1,000 it costs to install a “fast” charger in one’s home and the certainty of having to spend thousands on a replacement battery at some point.

IC cars may require a new engine or transmission; but it isn’t a certainty and many will never need either over the course of their useful life of 15-20 years or longer.

But the artificially mandated market for inherently small-market EVs is about to get a lot larger because almost every major car company has “committed” to building EVs en masse; several have “committed” to building nothing but EVs and within the next five years or even sooner.

The problem will be finding buyers for these EVs.

At least, so long as buyers have a choice.

Even with subsidies to offset the cost of their manufacture – and government kickbacks to the buyer – EVs have been a hard sell and a no-profit.

The media image of EVs being both everywhere and inevitable for everyone runs up hard against the brick wall fact that in spite of all the hard-selling and subsidizing, EVs only constitute about 1 percent of all cars on the road.

This isn’t likely to change unless millions of average people find the means to spend 30-50 percent more for their next new (electric) car or the cost of electric cars goes down by 30-50 percent.

Is there any indication of either thing happening?

Most people have less buying power today than they did twenty years ago because of stagnant or regressive wages and lower discretionary income due to rising costs (especially for health insurance) and inflation. They can barely afford non-electric cars. Most new car loans have been pushed out to six or seven years in order to reduce the monthly payment but the problem is the principle – which continues to increase.

EVs will cause the principle to increase by the aforesaid 30-50 percent.

Loans can’t be pushed out much beyond eight years to make that more palatable because of depreciation – and electric cars depreciate faster than non-electric cars because of their built-in shorter economically viable lives. Their batteries will need to be replaced at least once for sure and probably before 10 years – again, assuming electric cars as they are and not as we are promised they will be … eventually.

But EV batteries are proportionately too expensive to be worth replacing after ten years or so for the same reason that it’s usually not worth putting a new engine in a ten-year-old non-electric car.

The only way this EVs-uber-alles regime works is if people – average people – suddenly have 30-50 percent more money available to spend on a new EV. Or if people are forced to give up their non-EVs via exorbitant fines designed to make them just as expensive as EVs; probably more so – to overcome the inconveniences of owning an EV.

Failing that, the EVs will sit.

And the car business – having committed to the EV business – will go out of business.

Grab a seat; the show’s going to be fun.

. . .

Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!

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Related posts:
  1. A Clover Speaks!
  2. Hidden Costs That Cost a Lot
  3. The Coming Cash For Not-Clunkers
  4. But Why Aren’t People Buying Electric Cars?
  5. A Tale of Two Sales

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

102 COMMENTS

  1. The average transaction price for all cars in America as of May 2019 is $36,700 according to Edmunds. There are already several electric cars that you can buy for less than that before government incentives – Nissan Leaf, Tesla 3, Smart EQ, Hyundai Ioniq, VW eGolf, Fiat e500, Kia Soul EV, Chevy Bolt. For a little bit more you can get a Hyundai Kona Electric for $36,500 or Kia Nero EV for $38,500.Clover

    The nice thing about electrics is that they are fun to drive with instant torque, never require an oil change, tune up, radiator fluid change, fan belts to replace, or trips the gas station. They are much cheaper to fuel up with electric costs (depending on region) often equating to well over 100mpg if you used gas instead.

    • Mookie,

      Your argument has more holes than Titanic has . . .right now.

      Yes, the “average transaction price” paid for a new IC car is $36k… which sum will buy you a loaded mid-sized car such as a Camry V6 or an entry-luxury sedan such as the Benz A-Class I just reviewed.

      But the cars you describe are all basically compact-sized economy cars that happen to be electric… the difference? About $20k – which is the difference in price between an EV such as the ones you have listed and the cost to buy an IC economy cars such as a Nissan Versa or a Hyundai Accent – either of which can also go twice as far as the EV and take a fraction of the time to refuel and will never need a $5,000 battery pack replacement, either.

      Your comparison is thus fatuous.

      Also, dangerous – because people like you are egging on what amounts to an increase in the cost of every new car by 50 percent or more by pushing everyone into an EV that costs $30k or more. This is going to destroy the economy – unless you think average people can just absorb such a titanic increase in the cost of driving.

      And keep in mind that the EV prices you quote are all under-stated because the manufacturers are giving them away at a net loss each. The true cost of EVs is significantly higher.

      There is also the cost of installing the “fast” charger in your home. And the certain cost of having to replace the electric car’s battery – a huge cost – years before most IC cars will have ever needed more than those oil and filter changes you speak of.

      EVs are cheaper to charge up – certainly. If you close your eyes to the cost of the EV itself, in time and money.

      As for the “nice” torque. Well, so? My Trans-Am has “nice” torque, too – more than 500 ft.-lbs. of it. Should you be forced to “help” me enjoy it?

      And they ask me why I drink . . .

    • I have a 92′ Geo Metro. filled the tank today for $15.85. Drove a friend home. 128mi round trip. 3/4 tank left. Didn’t have to search for a charging station. 😉

    • The sort of battery EV one can buy for that average transaction price is a lot less car for the money than one can get for the same money that isn’t a battery EV.

  3. I may just enjoy watching these kings of “Transportation” taking it in the pants for not having the balls to stand up and refuse Uncle.

    And then act like it was their own bright ideas that brought up a shiny happy electric future.

    My Valiant will carry on long after they’ve been banished from industry after the collapse.

    • Hi Zathras,

      Thanks for posting the link, another example of a practice, if done by anyone other than Saint Musk, would result in numerous lawsuits and hostile media coverage. Musk always gets a pass. Will people ever realize that this guy is just a huckster and parasite?

      It is provable that the Muskrat has known about this since late 2015 but, according to the article, he has not fixed it, even with the new 32G eMMC flash chip. I suspect that Musk has known of the issue for much longer. Selling anything without disclosing a known issue is fraud. Tesla should be responsible for the repair whether the car is in warranty or not, of course, that won’t happen. The descendants of Nikola Tesla should sue this fucker for defaming his great name.

      Cheers,
      Jeremy

      • Jeremy,
        There are more of these hucksters and parasites in Washington D.C. than there are congresscritters, largely because they are referred to by the relatively benign “lobbyist” rather than more accurate labels.
        The best thing that was done to reclaim Nikola Tesla’s name was the SCOTUS reversal of his priority in his radio patents from the thievery of Marconi after they were both dead. Unfortunately, most of the radio world missed same. All he got in the Henry Ford for his polyphase patents was a tiny plaque across from a Westinghouse dynamo.

        • Hey Vonu,

          I’m pretty sure that DC is the wealthiest area in the US, or very close. Considering that DC excels at the production of “bads” (hat tip to HHH), not goods, most of this wealth is derived from parasitical theft, not valuable production.

          Cheers,
          Jeremy

          • Jeremy,
            Washington D.C. economic distinctions run from the most severe poverty of any major American city to the heights of remuneration that government bureaucrats are privy to. No person of superlative wealth would ever want any of his fellows to count him as a resident of a ghetto like D.C.
            Some of the wealthiest people in the US have homes in many of the wealthiest places in the country. Very few of them have the need to have residence anywhere in this country when they can reside in multiple tax shelters throughout the world with much nicer digs than anything this country has offered since the Fed came to subjugate us.
            TPTB are currently siphoning all of the remaining available wealth out of the world’s industrial powers in preparation for their plans to sit back and watch the world’s military eliminate all remaining resistance to their reign. Those of us not trapped by personal debt will find life under their shadows quite comfortable as long as they continue to relegate the maintenance of what they regard as appropriate technology to those of us equipped with the means to do so.

    • It can be fixed much more cheaply with board level repair. But TM products are filled with these bone head things that make the vehicles economically disposable if you can’t do quite a lot of repair yourself and require a second car while you send off a sub assembly to a rebuilder if your soldering skills aren’t up to doing fine SMT repair work. And all the things that require dropping a battery pack means having a lift will be essential to keeping these and probably any battery EV for the long term.

      In Cuba the communist party didn’t confiscate or prevent the use of cars people already had. They were just sort of stuck with them because replacements weren’t economically feasible or politically available to them. Somehow I don’t see governments in the USA being that generous.

      • Is SMT similar to SMD?
        Governments in the USA have deferred to the private Federal Reserve for so long that it wouldn’t be up to them.

        • Surface Mount Technology. Components are soldered to pads on the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) rather than having through hole mounting. The pads for chips can be under the chips and very small. Soldering them by hand requires a stencil, solder balls, and skill.

          • OK, it is an extension of Surface Mount Devices without which the Technology wouldn’t exist.
            I don’t know of anyone who bothers to install SMDs by hand since they are designed to be flow soldered by robots. Given the hourly rate of the technicians who operate the flow soldering systems, I can’t imagine them ever doing anything manually. Manual soldering is well on its way to antiquity.

    • One thing that I love about the carrier-class routers and switches I deal with at work is that the parts are fairly easy to access and replace, although usually not down to the component level. But replacing a failed board is usually a simple matter of loosening a few captive screws, releasing a clip or two and removing the board. Simple. Takes more time to get someone at the NOC on the phone to put the replacement back in service. Compare that to anything involving parts behind a dashboard. Compared to a 19″ cabinet and the size of most of the circuit boards there’s a ton of places to put them that would make it a simple task to replace if necessary. But it might take an extra step on the assembly line, or not fit into the transport frame from the subcontractor plant, so instead we get these nightmares to save a few manufacturing pennies.

  5. Let’s review:

    VW buys back my TDI Passat, I pay cash for a late model Touareg TDI for less than $23k. If I keep my foot out of those 406 foot pounds of torque, I can get 30 ish mpg down the interstate. With a 26.5 gallon tank, my ‘range anxiety’ begins near mile 725. Yeah, I’d rather own an eGolf for $36k w 125 mile range. Not.

    • Hi DipShift,

      In another few years, few will even remember the TDI diesels that had 700-plus miles of range (and could exceed 50 MPG on the highway) and cost $22k or so (for a Jetta) and would last 20-plus years. Down the memory hole … along with the time of not being required to show “papers” at checkpoints or wear seat belts or be forced to buy health insurance.

  6. “Most people have less buying power today than they did twenty years ago because of stagnant or regressive wages and lower discretionary income due to rising costs (especially for health insurance) and inflation.”

    You forgot the effect of immigration, both legal and illegal, which has capped wages. Of course, the 1% love the cheap labor they provide, Americans be damned.

    • Hi Bobster,

      Absolutely. And our costs – for things like government schools and health insurance – have increased for the same reasons. This brings up the most valid reason for opposition to immigration, in my view. Which is that it is suicidal to have a welfare state and open borders. Certainly, people come here because there’s more opportunity. But there is also more Free Stuff. It is reasonable for those who are forced to pay for this Free Stuff to object to being forced to provide it for more people.

      It is ultimately unsustainable. If you wish to sustain a middle class, at any rate. It is very sustainable if you want to eliminate the middle class and create a system of elites and peons.

      • A little more. A little less. A little slower. A little faster. A little quieter. A little louder. A little camry. A little tesla. A little old lady pinching a little arsenic in your tea is a little suicide at a time.

        If it’s just the rate of the deathwish\murder that varies – & it is, this rationale – you still merely end up arguing for the deathwish\murder.

        “Closing the borders” is a little thumb in a big ol’ dike that’s never been & will never be big enough, designed & engineered enough, to hold back reality, the truth, the simple math.

        The barn’s already lit, on fire, a conflagration…the moths it attracts got nada to do with the arsonists who had to destroy the place to save it.

        The Trojan gift horse is already inside the walls. It always was, & it will always be. And if that ain’t a definition of “sustainable” I don’t know what is.

        “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the ‘wet streets cause rain’ stories. Paper’s full of them.” Michael Crichton.

        Not saying you’re Crichton’s journalist.

        Am saying nothing can be built, to last, on a foundation of downstream facts. (Dang me, dang me, they oughta’ build a dam & drown me? Roger Miller: some people walk in the reign, others, most — just get wetwork — or worked. As in Deliverance’d.)

        • Closing the border will never happen until the fence covers it totally.
          The best way to control the border is to bring our soldiers back from places where they don’t belong and never should have been sent in the first place, and put them on the border, fingertip to fingertip, 24/366, along with bilingual signage that makes it clear that lethal force is approved to stop trespassers. What works at Area 51 would work fine on the border.

            • Where did I say I approve of anything?
              Are you a self-appointed moderator now?
              If you live long enough, you will learn that the reason why you don’t like knowing some things is because you don’t approve of them and you lack the courage to admit it out loud.

      • The major drivers for the continuous increase in the cost of public schools are the unions and the fact that the athletic coaches make more than principals and their staffs do, because everything rides on keeping student morale high, and that is done more easily by winning games than by graduating literates.

  7. Aside from their enormous costs, the worst thing about EVs is their very limited range, even for the best of them. Make that “least worst” of them. The result is the equivalent of the sudden disappearance of the entire interstate highway system: thus relegating all long-distance road trips to the likes of Route 66, US 40 and worse. Enormous amounts of time lost, in every aspect. Bye-bye your next US vacation, Griswold family!

    For me and others like-committed, this is potentially catastrophic. For I swore four years ago–when TSA agents at LAX molested my wife while they irradiated me (we were both “pre-check”)–that I would never again fly commercial, barring an almost-unimaginable emergency. Thus far, I have kept my vow, missing–to date–a beloved nephew’s wedding because of it. (I regretted that, but made no apologies.)

    With the “Green New Steal” imminently threatening to obliterate commercial air travel, where does that leave, well, everyone? The answer: not far from home, if you can afford an EV. If not, within the range of an EV bus, Uber or shank’s mare.

    • Hi Marcus,

      I try to understand… but it makes me tired. EVs are the equivalent of replacing all commercial aircraft with DC3s. Instead of a non-stop from LAX to JFK in five hours or so, a two-day ordeal of hops from one regional airport to the next, stop for fuel; resume – repeat. And pay twice as much for the ticket, too.

      The only objective functional advantages I can see that an EV offers are: (1) You can “refuel” at home and (2) they are very quiet and (3) they have tremendous low-end torque.

      Refueling at home is at best a mixed-bag because of the time and planning involved. You have to remember to plug in and you have to be plugged in much more often than an IC car needs to be gassed up. Multiplication of effort and time.

      Quiet. Yes, okay. But almost all new cars are quiet, too. Not Mustang GTs and Hellcats, obviously. But how much more quiet is a Tesla than a Camry once you’re moving? It’s s very slight difference.

      Torque: Definitely. This is the one indisputable EV superiority. But it’s an advantage that’s tempered by the disadvantages of shorter range and having to wait to recharge. Anything you can’t use as much isn’t as good by definition.

        • Hi Vonu,

          Speaking of that… if only I had the means to buy a JT3D Pratt& Whitney turbojet from an old 707 and mount it on a stand, so I could light it up whenever I needed to pull myself out of a depressive funk…

          • Eric,
            Give them some time. If the F-35 keeps losing customers, they’ll eventually take the F-16 off the market to make people buy them, similar to how they are trying to force us to buy EVs. The media has been really quiet about the Russian’s new S-400 missile defense system because it is beating the pants off our antiquated junk, like the one that we sold to Saudi Arabia that couldn’t even stop a subsonic attack from a couple dozen Yemeni copies of Iran’s drones and cruise missiles.
            The S-400 can see anything that anyone has flying regardless of “stealth” because it uses the lower radar frequencies that aren’t fooled by the high technology being used for stealth.
            Estes Industries has anything you are likely to need to cure your funk.

          • Those J•eric•ho walls gotta’ tumble. & that ain’t no downstream premise.

            But, sometimes, there’s things a body can do for its health that are beneficial (unlike all the bootyficial nonsense that freights institutionalizing you to youse to “health & human services,” or whatever the liar title is).

            Some unburnt offerings that are still standing, for me, amongst the very much larger pile of corpses that copped their feel, then perished:

            Sceletium tortuosum. “Zembrin.” Cheap to try. 2 bottles, maybe less, you’ll know if it helps you. When I trialed it, Dr. David Williams brand was the only one on the market; I still use it. I see more formulations on amazon now. Read the Doctor’s Best reviews.

            Metagenics SPM Active. Inflammation. Not cheap. But not adverse side effectual, either (so far as I know). Pours atmospheres of deluge on the flames – I’ve done it, several times, with one of the worst inflammatory processes, in terms of pain (& damage) there is. Before that it was opiates (which merely fools the brain, doesn’t touch inflammation — & ain’t easy to get, anyway\either), then advil, 800mg, which works, 20 minutes flat, but is problematic (& in me, causes allergic reaction, too – so Benadryl atop). The “steroidal” fish oil is a best option so far.

            Integrative Therapeutics Lipase Concentrate-HP. Fat digestion (& if there is any question at all about that, add a good bile; I use Allergy Research Group ox bile, 125mg). *BUT* read reviews. You’ll see a number who describe a good other effect: anxiolytic; include me in experiencing that. Ent•eric brain, gut-brain axis…there ain’t no compartments, earthling (which means, truly, that country doctors are doubly – at the least – retarded).

            Wobenzyme. A good systemic enzyme. Taken with food, it helps digestion. Away from food (like in the middle of the night, when I wake), it does who knows what all (not just joints, as the N version I use emphasizes) – including helping me get back to, a little more, sleep. I feel better with it than without.

            If your adrenals are pummeled, & why wouldn’t they be, the cascade ain’t like the stuff you put in your dishwasher – more like the opposite, & like the baked on stuff the d/w leaves alone. Standard Process desiccated adrenal works for me, but SP’s a “proprietary” brand which, with now available alternatives, doesn’t work for me. I like Ancestral Supplements (Adrenal – I take 3, 3x a day, most days — among others); clean source, ingredients listed.

            I cut out the caffeine, too; it beats two dead horses, named adrenal, at a time. Best decaf, so far, is Kicking Horse, outta’ Vancouver. I used to drink their 454 (even tho the 427 was a better engine – I had one) & Grizzly Claw. 25g in a moka pot.

            I get the Integrative Therapeutics & Metagenics stuff at *much* better prices via a little strip mall naturopathic doc than from Amazon. Ancestral’s stuff is pricing higher & higher. Supply, demand, & currency destruction (that’s “health & human services” – welfare – for the made guys\gals who apparently need it the most).

            You gotta have the means that matter before you can ever get the means that matter to a JT3D seller.

  8. Why is it “usually not worth putting a new engine in a ten-year-old non-electric car?”
    My second van was a 1980 E-150. I put a new engine in it shortly after I bought it the early 1990s, and two more in the total of 14 years that it was my daily driver and my residence. In the mid-2000s, I put the channel iron front bumper on it that I used a pinch plate and a tow bar to pull it behind the truck tractors that I moved for a couple of years, until its right rear wheel came off during such a move.
    I suspect that the lack of affordability of EVs will cause a large number of them to be depreciated on dealer’s lots for months or years until they come into the range of the few buyers that might still want them, perhaps for replacement parts, like one of Gary North’s minivans. One can only imagine what a Mad Max survivor might be able to concoct out of a several year old brand new EV.
    I’ll turn 65 in a couple of weeks, probably about the same time that my 2003 E-150 turns 300K on its odometer. After the Great Correction begins, probabilities will become possibilities and I expect that my plans to put a new drive train in the current daily driver and residence will go forward without a hitch, and I might even find a mechanic who would be happy to be paid in American Gold Eagles rather than in Federal Reserve Notes.

  9. And then there’s this:

    $35 Billion: UK Faces Huge Loss From Electric Vehicle Adoption
    https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/35-Billion-UK-Faces-Huge-Loss-From-Electric-Vehicle-Adoption.html

    (excerpt)
    If Great Britain keeps its commitment to switch over its vehicles to electric by 2050, the government will see a whopping loss of 28 billion pounds ($35 billion) paid by motorists driving traditional gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles.

    That comes from a study released Friday by London-based Institute for Fiscal Studies examining the impact of the UK’s net-zero greenhouse gas emissions law adopted in June and signed by previous Prime Minister Theresa May. England became the first G7 country to set the goal of reaching zero net emissions by 2050.

    Fuel duties on petrol-powered vehicles make up almost 4 percent of total government receipts — and all of that will disappear unless urgent action is taken, according to think tank IFS’ study. The government may need to take a new approach to taxing motorists as all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles become the norm, the study advises.

  10. Let me sleep on it, baby, baby, let me sleep on it ♪♫♪.

    Meet the new chopped meat loaves & rot from the head down fishes – same as the old.

    So what? Who cares? Why? (Isn’t that a rhetorical question?)

    When syphilization encroaches, move. Seems like, but ain’t, a variation on don’t expect a one gig “career” with a goldwatch pension at “retirement.” Not to mention “will you love me forever.”

    If you can’t (or won’t) move, then that’s the actual problem. This is spinal taproot. Park yer Masada & put it up on blocks. Wait for the romans to wait you out.

    Toe-to-toe is no-no-neinette.

    So when your dashboard lights are in hell, just drive. And like a bat outta’ hell ain’t even necessary.

    The Gosling kicked all ass, then lets the accountant from Midnight Run stick him? Guess the glowing metal on the edge of the knife mesmer’d him.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C11MzbEcHlw
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRnXyvLjfVM
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bNNW8QWaQI

  11. I bought a 4 year old EV (very cheap that way) with only 26K miles on it. It costs me $1.50 in electricity each time I charge it. I get the equivalent of 130 mpg in energy use. It’s quiet. It doesn’t stink. It has great acceleration. I am happy with it. You have to game the system and use it to your own advantage.

    • I assume that your EV isn’t your only car? Or if it is, you never take a road trip? I drive up to Canada each year and I drive around 900 miles/day on each of the 4 travel days. How could anyone possibly make that trip in an EV? EVs can be useful if you just drive around a city but most of us use our cars for more than just a short daily commute.

      • Yes, I also have a Prius that averages 50 mpg. I got it when it was 4 years old, too, with only 37K miles. However, I use the EV most of the time. But, if I only had the EV it would still be cheaper to rent an ICE car a couple times a year for long trips than to buy one and keep it up all the time.

        • We can always introduce a specific scenario where an EV will fail. But for >90% of the population, the range is more than adequate. If the costs weren’t so damn expensive, EVs could work for a majority of Americans.

          • The goal of TPTB is to make it cover 100% of the population by moving or exterminating those who do not live in the cities. That is likely to be the trigger for our first real hot civil war, and they’ll lose interest after all of their enforcers come back dead. Eventually, all of our big cities will be like Atlanta and D.C., where tractor-trailers are not allowed inside the loop around the city without a specific permit, and eventually, an escort.

            • Yeah, they’re going to have a hell of a time relocating us country boys. Just trying to live long enough to see it through. Beware of the old men who just don’t care anymore.

              • You’ll be fine as long as you have Hank William Jr.’s resolve and resources. FEMA will separate the wheat from the chaff when it tries to commandeer the grocery warehouses and close the restaurants to anyone besides the busloads of refugees headed for the big city.

    • Hi Harvey,

      Sure – but you make my points for me. EVs are too expensive – and they depreciate too quickly. How does a business survive making products most people can’t afford? I mean, without the business being propped up by the government?

      The electricity is only cheap because it’s not taxed to the same degree as gas (yet).

      No IC car made in decades “stinks” – unless someone farted inside it.

      I’ll give you quiet – but to me, that’s a deficit!

      • I wasn’t trying to claim your argument was not valid. I was just saying that gaming the system can be to your personal advantage. The fact that they do depreciate so rapidly allowed me to get one cheap and take advantage of the much cheaper operating cost right now. Also, no maintenance cost so far, either.

      • Eric,
        I would assume that someone with your economic chops would know the answer to that question is to solicit yet another subsidy from the congresscritters you bought.

  12. I wouldn’t buy an EV if they were free. Looks like keeping your IC car or truck could be beneficial in that its value might go up if they aren’t making them anymore. What are these idiots going to do? Ban ICE’s altogether? Even if an IC vehicle retains good value, what could you trade it for? If the dealer isn’t selling them, he won’t take it. So, I am thinking you would have to make a private transaction to sell or buy an IC vehicle and the there would be some monstrous fees attached to the title transfer. Or, gas stations will be banned from operation altogether, except to become 7-11s and sell junk food. I see where Eric says the green Marxists are taking us, but I am not sure we will get there without massive upheaval and disruption to the economy that leaves many people in dire straits. Funny that China demands EV’s when they create massive CO2 pollution creating power to charge the silly beasts. Of course, any sane non-liberal knows that CO2 is not dangerous to the planet.

    • Hi Tom,

      Given that bans – and taxes – are already a fact in Europe I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine similar happening here… though perhaps when people begin to realize what it will mean they will change their minds. Right now, virtue signaling about being “green” comes at relatively low cost. That will change as all of this gets serious…

  13. Another example of the Chinese miracle of central planning, the one child policy:

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/10/151030-china-one-child-policy-mei-fong/

    When will these people ever learn? Not the central planners, the people who want to live under their rule. I don’t know if they have no confidence in themselves, or were sold magic beans as a child or what, but why people don’t seem to have any faith in their own sense of self-interest is beyond me.

    The United States experiment was all about distributed power. The authoritarian thinker believes the reason was only because of communication and transportation issues. In other words, distributed power was a practical matter, not a philosophical one. So their argument is that thanks to instantaneous communication and high speed transportation, it only “makes sense” to concentrate power. That way any cockamamie idea that some bureaucrat comes up with can be implemented everywhere, with extremely limited debate, if any.

    A good idea is a good idea. Full stop. No one needed subsidies for personal computers, cell phones and other technology of the last 30 years (although there are no examples of a non-crony capitalist tech company, unfortunately). Electric cars do have advantages (and disadvantages) over ICE cars. For many they will stand on their merits without the subsidies. By goosing the market and causing distortion Uncle is just confusing the investors, and propping up obviously poorly run enterprises who are better at marketing and adept at Washington politics than they are at actually building cars. If Massachusetts and California want to incentivize electric cars in their state, that’s fine by me. If Colorado wants to do it, I’ll vote no. That’s the advantage of distributed power.

    • No argument from me…
      But you are transmitting on AM radio and the people who run the US train are broadcasting on FM. Your logic is good, but they do not operate like you and me.
      In fact, their agenda is not the environment, but money and power. The environment is just one of the many proxy warriors they use to aggregate their position.
      We must stop fooling around with the bait, and we must exterminate the fisherman.

      All else is tomfoolery….

      Nothing is going to improve until we resume saying NO to women !

      • American broadcasters are already trying to come up with a way they can continue to operate on AM. The smart ones are starting to take a serious look at DRM like many asian countries have already transitioned to. Eventually all transmitters will be digital regardless of band, and will probably be looking into selling their licensed bandwidth to the highest bidder. One of the hottest booths at the recent NAB show was the car with a dashboard that could get content from AM or FM stations, cellular carriers, or play it locally from flash.

  14. These EV/Green energy idiots are going to get us killed from implementing their stupidity. If you live along the Gulf Coast, the current civil defense plan is for everyone to get the hell out of dodge. There are not millions of people along the coast. Imagine trying to move them out with electric vehicles.

    In the aftermath of the destruction, I would guess fossil fuels would be a lot more portable until things get back to normal. The greens also don’t understand concepts like ‘baseline’ load on electrical grid.

  15. Another good article !
    There is NO WAY to avoid the coming conflict between government mandates such as the EV and economic reality. All sorts of schemes will be advanced to take our resources, and all will fail. Government promises goodies, but must steal to get them. That theft can be in the form of slavery, fiat money, war, imprisonment, or anything that forces a wealth transfer to the Oligarchs.
    This is what we get by failing to control our borders.
    Lastly, it struck me in reading this narrative that the need to recharge EVs necessitates electric grid level power. What in Hell can the OFF GRID, rural home do to charge their government mandated EV ?

    • I think the powers-that-shouldn’t-be have already figured out what to do with the off grid, rural home–they practiced on Randy Weaver and family. The small North Carolina community where I grew up is slowly implementing Agenda Whatever Number stuff these days. NAFTA killed factories and jobs. Bridges are being torn down and roads closed, wells poisoned by chlorine. FYI: In most, if not all, N.C. counties, if you provide water or food for public consumption, you must have your water poisoned. If you don’t, it’s not just a state or local matter–it’s regulated by the Department of Homeland Security. I used to read about the crazed psychopathic elites’ wanting to return rural areas to wild lands and think it was crazy talk, but now I see it slowly happening, unfortunately. The good people I grew up with are for the most part trusting and loving folks and they don’t see any of this stuff coming their way.

  16. Here’s the thing. Let’s assume the science is correct and increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 is the principal cause of global warming since the start of the industrial revolution due to the greenhouse effect. Now according to some sources, globally, about 15% of man-made carbon dioxide comes from cars, trucks, airplanes, ships and other vehicles. Of this 15%, 59% comes from light ICE-powered vehicles (mainly cars and light trucks). So if these numbers are more or less correct, it means less than 9% of global human-caused CO2 emissions comes from ICE automobiles and light duty trucks. Which begs the question: what will governments do when their current EV crusade proves to be almost totally ineffective in substantially reducing man-made CO2 emissions – again, assuming the science is correct.

    • What will happen when reality comes around to bite the greenies in their butts with the realization that the three-blade wing generators and solar farms have always been nothing but subsidy-sucking non-functional scams and the only reliable sources with growth potential are the mothballed coal-fired power plants?

  17. Hello Eric,
    With the fiat money system currently in place, every where in the world, It may be a moot point. At the rate we are going, it won’t be long before few will be able to feed, much less buy, any kind of car if they don’t have significant physical gold in their possession. Besides that, with the car market crashing, there may not be any new cars made in a couple of years, IC or EV. It would be interesting to see the tree hugger’s panic when, or if, they realize that the earlier disposing of EVs, and the material cost of building new ones is less ecofriendly than ICs are.

    • Hi JWK,

      I agree; the prospects of a mile-high tsunami are pretty good. And maybe curative at this point. The regulatory apparat is completely unhinged. No real consideration of cost/practicality. If it’s for “safety” or the “environment” then it’s cost-no-object. And people in the main don’t object or remain passive and accept it because they seem to have accepted endless debt servitude as the American Way.

      I’m an American… and this baffles me.

    • The tree-huggers expect tremendous “free” stuff from the government while destroying people’s ability to produce anything to pay the taxes. You could go on and on about their ignorance (electricity comes mainly from coal, and every cycle you do with energy is less than 100% efficient, so electric cars use more fossils than IC).
      What stupidized these people so severely was a change in the American school system aver 100 years ago. Read about it at http://www.constitution.org/col/one_room_schoolhouse.htm

      • Electric motors have always been more efficient than internal combustion engines, and since there is no such thing as fossil fuel, neither of them use any fossils.
        You appear to be suffering from screen psychosis, which is usually caused by reliance upon what you see on a screen that exceeds your understanding of the basic science behind it.

        • The entire cycle of generation and use of electricity is often not considered. The electric motor is more efficient but the whole cycle may or may not be considering the application, generation source, and so on.

        • Hi Vonu,

          Certainly. Electric motors are very efficient. But electrically propelled vehicles aren’t. This bike is egregiously inefficient. It has about half the range of a full-size non-electric cruiser bike; it wastes your time with recharging sessions and the cost is three times that of something far more flexible and versatile that doesn’t waste your time such as a gas-powered dual sport or adventure-touring bike you can buy new for less than $10k. Such a bike will average about 50 MPG and has a (typical) 3.5 gallon tank. How much gas could you have bought with the $20,000 extra you’d pay to own the DeadWire? I doubt you’d ever run out of money for fuel. I doubt I have spent $20,000 on gas to fuel every single motorcycle I have ever owned since a kid – which is a dozen of them over the course of 30-plus years.

          • Range and efficiency are totally different and not related in any way.
            If they were related, motorcycles would have much smaller tanks than they do.

            • Hi Vonu,

              Well, it depends on the parameter. If I want to drive across the country in the most time efficient manner, a car with a long range and a short refuel time is more efficient than any EV.

              Cheers,
              Jeremy

            • Hi Vonu,

              What I meant was that a $5k bike that can travel 150 miles on two gallons of $2.40 unleaded is more efficient in the sense of conserving money and other resources than a $30k bike that goes the same distance on $2.40 worth of electricity (or even free electricity).

              But I understand your meaning.

              • This is another thing that a lot of “efficiency fetishists” as I call them don’t realize. Electric MOTORS are, on paper, a very efficient way to use energy, but electric VEHICLES are inefficient in many other ways.

                For example, the size and weight of onboard “fuel storage”. An EV battery pack weighs more than the Lamborghini LM002’s 45 gallon gas tank did full, and stores significantly less energy. Sure, you can hide the weight in the floor to drop the center of gravity (which does undeniably have benefits, but also make a toxic lithium fire much more likely if there’s a collision or some large road debris), but you can’t fully cheat physics and if you are serious about the racetrack or mountain pass it’s still going to chew up tires and brakes much more quickly than a lighter car with the same speed and grip. So, EVs are inefficient users of weight and space.

                Then once you run out of “fuel”, how long does it take to get going again? With a gasoline car, you can fill your tank in about 5 minutes if you’re paying by card at the pump. Even paying cash, I once timed a partial fill at significantly less than 5 minutes from the moment my front wheels hit the concrete pad to the moment my back wheels left it – and that was with a couple people ahead of me at the registers. This is compared to EVs which take 30 minutes for a partial “fast” charge, and many hours for a full charge. “Oh, but the new Porsche Taycan can add 62 miles of range in 4 minutes!” Great, but I can add 300+ miles of range in the same amount of time, and then do that as many times in succession as I need to to get wherever I’m going. This is to say nothing of the trouble an EV-dependent driver is going to have if there’s a power outage or breaker trip that interrupts their charge in the middle of the night. Now the technocrats are planning to use EVs (on an opt-in basis… for now) as energy buffers to “load balance” the grid – charging during off-peak hours and discharging during peak hours. Supposedly, this energy communism will help mitigate the grid overload which is inevitable with mass EV adoption but I don’t know how they plan to avoid “short strawing” someone and besides, what happens if you need to jump in and go on a moment’s notice? So EVs, except under ideal circumstances and in an ideal use case, also use time inefficiently.

                And speaking of that Porsche Taycan being able to recharge 15 miles’ worth in a minute, I’d like to know long that battery will last. “Not long” is my guess. EV fanboys love to pretend that battery degradation either doesn’t happen or takes decades, but it absolutely does happen. So what are they going to do when their battery dumps and they can’t afford a new one? What happens when the car is so old no one even makes its battery pack anymore? Things will get expensive even if you manage to avoid simply replacing the entire car, on top of the EV’s much greater initial cost. All this for a vehicle which is compromised as a tool and borderline worthless as a toy. So EVs are also an inefficient use of money – both the end user’s and, since they tend to be subsidized in one way or another somewhere along the line, other people’s.

                Efficiency fetishists don’t understand any of this. Efficiency is a many splendored thing, which means different things to different people and in different situations. They home in on efficiency defined as “energy use at point of consumption relative to motion imparted” – a definition at war with the human soul, which has already sucked the character and variety out of mainstream combustion engines – and forget all the other valid definitions.

  18. Today, most people will “believe” whatever they’re told by corpgov and it’s media whores. Example, Recently ABC ‘News’ showed the Turks massacring Kurds and the video supposedly proving it was a video from a practice gun range a couple of years ago. Sort of like the CNN fake news years ago where they filmed what was supposed to be a real artillery barrage in their studio,,, all of it fake. Dumbshit Americans bought both, hook, line and sinker.

    What I am driving (pun intended) at is Americans are totally propagandized in every way. If corpgov and media say IC cars bad,,, then IC cars are bad. About every picture or video you see of an IC car on TV is from years ago show older cars and diesels smoking, leaking oil or whatever from poor maintenance. I saw one ad that had a nice new EV behind a smoking IC car with the EV driver and passenger coughing. Then of course there is the Globull Warming BS. The EV’s are shown on a clean highway with clear skies, green grass all around.

    They have con(ned)vinced most that they HAVE to do THEIR PART even if it costs “a little more”. The propaganda in our daily lives is so thick one could walk on it. And it’s (the propaganda) so good that you cannot convince the lemmings otherwise,,, as Eric can attest to. Real science, physics, math, common sense, etc doesn’t matter in our PC crazed world.

    In my opinion, many will purchase these things even without too much nudging from corpgov. The nudging and virtue signalling will make the rest follow. Hope I am wrong….

    • Ken, you’re assuming that people TRUST the corpgov media complex; they don’t! Trust in the establishment, national media is at an all time low…

      • MarkyMark, people may not trust the media or government, but when they are surrounded 24/7/365 with impenetrable propaganda, they have little choice but to accept much of what they hear and see as (probably) true. William Casey said that they will know that their disinformation program has been a success when everything we believe is false. I think they’ve succeeded with much of the country, as evidenced by the global warming hysteria.

        • There are plenty of alternative media outlets available, and people are FLOCKING to them! The mass media is held in the same low esteem as is Congress. CNN is in the nation’s busiest airports; they PAY to be there. If you take a flight, the odds are you’ll have no choice but to watch CNN. Even with that large, captive audience, their ratings are STILL in the toilet!

          WRT the global warming thing, surveys show that to be lower on the list of Americans’ concerns. What do Americans care about most? The budget deficit, national debt, the economy, and healthcare consistently rank higher on Americans concerns than global warming does. IOW, I don’t know if the mass media has been that successful with their propaganda campaign.

  19. In spite of all their disadvantages, I bet EVs would get a lot more acceptance if only they could offer comparable range and refilling/recharging times as does the typical IC vehicle.

    Yes, the higher price would remain an obstacle. But a many buyers might pay that price if they could get an EV that wasn’t hobbled by those two problems. Unfortunately those problems will persist until the state of battery tech progresses astronomically…..and that’s probably a long, LONG time.

    • Build a simple electric commuter car and sell it for maybe $10K-$15K brand new, and people will be all over it.

      The range and charge time won’t matter so much at that price. Either folks will have a second ICE car (or rent one) for road trips, or they just need to get to work and back and don’t need the range.

        • It makes you wonder if the morons behind the curtain are really trying to sabotage electric vehicles as well ????

          A cheap short range commuter electric car in wide use would eventually do a lot through the evil capitalism to actually improve the technology and infrastructure.

          • “It makes you wonder if the morons behind the curtain are really trying to sabotage electric vehicles as well ????”

            Ding, ding, ding! We have a winnah!

            The end goal for the greens is to make it impossible to live anything like a modern life outside of cities. Corralling everyone into cities makes them far easier to control, and in the end, it’s all about control, with them being the controllers. We will be subjugated to the needs of “society”. Outside the cities will be reserved for the dachas of elite and “biosphere reserves”. Beats me where the food comes from-vats?

        • Let’s just see some small entrepreneur build a cost-competitive EV…and IF he succeeds, then see the corporate State kick into high gear to “investigate”, regulate, and obstrufucate the thing to death, as was done with Preston Tucker and his Tucker ’48 some 70-odd years ago.

      • Anon, such EVs already exist; they’re called LSEVs, or low speed EVs. They’re available in China for less than $10k! However, even when looking at pics of LSEVs, I don’t see them coming here. Why? Uncle, of course. The NHTSA would never allow a LSEV here because it’s not SAAAAAAAAAFE. To make it safe would require more metal to beef it up. This, in turn, would make the LSEV slower and shorter range than it already is, or it would drive the cost up. But yeah, EVs like you described are ALREADY available-just not here…

          • The sad thing is that LSEVs would be viable city vehicles. They’re small and light; for their mission, they need to be. Unfortunately, Uncle would deem them “unsafe”, because they’re not substantial enough. They carry one or two people, no more. The fastest ones go 35-40 mph, and have a range of 40-60 miles. As heavy as the traffic is in large, Chinese cities like Beijing or Shanghai, you’d be lucky to get anywhere CLOSE to max speed! But they’re perfect city vehicles.

  20. You know that Karl Marx guy said the end of capitalism was inevitable too because of Historical Materialism. But also he said a revolution of the working classes was required to ‘nudge’ it along.

  21. Eric,

    “IC cars may require a new engine or transmission; but it isn’t a certainty and many will never need either over the course of their useful life of 15-20 years or longer.”

    With proper care, a gasoline or diesel engine car of sound design can last a very long time. I’m not saying it’s typical, but my IC car has not required any internal engine or transmission work since it left the factory in 1972. Do the EV fanbois think that ANY battery electric vehicle on the market today will still be providing viable transportation in 47 years? (Mine may be an outlier but I do know a lot of people with 20-25 year old daily drivers that have not required serious engine or transmission repairs. I won’t be around to see it but I very much doubt that any of today’s Leaf or Tesla vehicles will be found anywhere outside of a scrapyard in 20-25 years.)

    • Amen, Jason!

      My truck is almost 20 years old; still has its original clutch and the engine is very tight. It ought to be good for at least another 5-10 years of regular service before anything major has to be replaced.

      • That is, if the Commonwealth of Virginia doesn’t either tax your rig or regulate it to death. Just try to keep your old ride going in Cali(porn)ia and deal with CARB and the DMV.

        • “Perhaps no one expressed the views & opinions of that first generation of American settlers better than Lansford W. Hastings, author of The Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon & California, published in 1845. In a heady mix of boosterism & insight, Hastings first waxed lyrical about California’s valleys “of unequalled fertility & exuberance,” its “unheard of uniformity & salubrity of climate,” & its “inexhaustible resources,”so that no country is “so eminently calculated by nature itself, in all respects, to promote the unbounded happiness & prosperity of civilized & enlightened man. According to Hastings the only disquieting aspect of California was that the local Indians were “in a state of absolute vassalage, even more degrading & more oppressive than that of our slaves in the south.” Luckily, even this problem could be turned into an advantage: “Whether slavery will eventually be tolerated in this country in any form, I do not pretend to say, but it is quite certain that the labor of Indians will for many years be as little expensive to the farmers of that country, as slave labor, being procured for a mere nominal consideration.” ~ The Other Slavery, Andres Resendez

          Every place has always been no place for somebody to be. Key to that lock is right there, too: go along to get along, take every advantage, enable & subsidize the we•eble us (the people) vs them (one capitan of industrial rationalization\denial hung it all on “…Indians as children of nature — credulous, superstitious, & gullible — & sometimes resorted to manipulation. To intimidate them he carried the paw of a very large grizzly bear & showed it to them, knowing that they viewed grizzlies as especially powerful, & even evil, spirits.”

          So the slavers & the slaved have “changed” in cali. Some broad with a pelosi paw’s doin’ it now. etc.

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