Reader Question: Planes, Trains and Electric Cars?

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

John writes: My niece recently moved from San Francisco to Chicago, with her Tesla. She is a registered Pharmacist working for Walgreen’s. Pharmacists make real Money. Walgreens paid for her college, and she worked in SF for 12 years. They paid to move her to Chicago, including shipping the Tesla. She wanted out of SF after the second time an armed robber jumped the counter and held her up. She feels safer in Chicago because there is an armed guy on her side of the counter; when she comes to work, she calls the guy and he comes out to her car and escorts her inside – and the same way when she goes home. I live outside Decatur. My house is 280 miles south of her apartment. She ran out of battery about 75 miles from here. I sent a AAA tow truck because my membership allows 100 miles of towing. So I used it. We put her car on the 120 Volt plug for 2 days, and it still wasn’t fully charged, so I put it on my car trailer and took her home. Her sister’s in-laws live in suburban Chicago – she says she may try to borrow one of their gasoline cars for her Thanksgiving trip.

My reply: The sad thing is your niece probably loves her Tesla.

I sort of understand that in that I have owned piece of crap cars that for some reason or another I felt some affection for. But I was never under any illusion that they weren’t pieces d’ crap. For example, the ’87 Lincoln Mark VII I had for a while. It had the infamous air suspension that failed almost with the regularity of the Soviet moon rocket program – but I liked it because it looked like an ingot of gold (it was actually gold in color) and had the same basic drivetrain as the same-year Mustang GT.

It was also capable of traveling 280 miles without a flatbed… most of the time.

The Tesla/EV thing is – I am being serious now – a kind of illness. A mania that suppresses critical thinking. Even when these cars “work,” they still don’t… relative to non-IC cars. Your niece because she felt unsafe in a city where she was attacked by an armed thug… but drives a car that can (and has) left her at the mercy of thugs, by design. It is one thing to be stuck with an unexpectedly broken down car by the side of the road for an hour or 12 or so.

It is another to drive a car that comes with this “feature” standard.

Running low on gas in a not-great part of town is no fun. But a quick segue into a gas station, five gallons in (three minutes, tops) and you’re 100 miles down the road again in three minutes, tops – even if the car is a horrendous gas pig that only averages 20 MPG.

Meanwhile, her Tesla sits… while she waits.

But it gets even better! She’s going to love spending $6,000 on her new battery pack.

Meanwhile, you get to spend $1,000 to install a “fast” charger at your house for her to use!

Sometimes, you just have to touch the stove.

. . .

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

If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.