A “Breakthrough”

Perhaps a bit dire, but someone else who agrees with you.

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjun23/too-late6-23.html

By the by, “codpiece bragging point” is brilliant.

For many decades, we drove from SE Michigan to New Jersey — 600 miles — to visit relatives, and vice versa.

They would drive to Michigan with an ICE car full of food and just two 10 minute stops for gasoline and bathroom use. They would always have a full tank when they arrived. An EV could not duplicate that trip.

We would drive to New Jersey in an ICE car with two 45 minute stops for breakfast and lunch, both including a gasoline fill-up at a nearby service station, so we also arrived with a full tank of gasoline.

If we could afford a $50k EV that had a 300-mile range, duplicating our trip would require that these two restaurants on the way had available EV fast chargers that we could use while eating lunch and breakfast. And no 20 or 30 minute wait to use a charger. I doubt if many restaurants could afford to add lots of fast chargers. So an EV would not work for us, except to reduce or eliminate our long car trips.

Will the fast EV chargers on the road, assuming they are working and there is no 20 to 30 minute wait to use one, give people the option to eat a meal, use the bathroom and/or buy drinks and snacks? Right now it seems like there are far from enough fast chargers, and nothing useful to do when you get to one.

Back in April, the House and Senate passed a bill to overturn the EPA’s “emissions” rules for heavy-duty trucks. EPA claimed these rules are 80% more stringent than current standards.

Today “Biden” vetoed that bill.

Two words, “Joe”: economic sabotage. You are systematically destroying both private vehicles and freight transport trucks. You make me sick.

And the “electric car” *could* have been a breakthrough, like diesel-electric railroad engines. Their only real shortcoming is the battery. Even *that* could have been good, if the old “supercapacitors” they promised us in the 80/90 had been real.

Electric cars can have smaller, lighter, simpler (less failure prone) drive trains. A purpose built diesel engine driving a generator at a constant speed keeping a *large* capacitor (or *small* battery) feeding the electic motors, would make for much simpler, more modular maintenance. Would likely get *far* greater mileage due to the smaller diesel always running at peak performance (or idling).

Of course that wouldn’t fit the CO2 narrative.

And in a heart warming post from USA Today:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/06/13/orlando-police-officer-pulled-over-florida-deputy-body-cam-video/70316501007/

Today’s lesson- don’t go 80 in a 45 zone.

They keep expecting these things to follow the standard deflationary model for electronics. What they’re missing is that EVs aren’t electronic, they’re electric. Difference being and electronic device uses transistors, resistors and capacitors to control and signal using electricity, while and electric device converts electricity to perform work. Work is pretty much fixed in Newtonian physics. Watts in vs Watts out. That’s it. You can get a little incremental improvment with stronger magnetic fields (from rare earth magnets), silver or other high priced metal coils, and ceramic ball bearings, but that doesn’t drive down costs. So it really comes down to volume. And there ain’t enough demand with the lousy product they’re making today, so there’s a valley of death that has to be bridged, in this case by government.

I’ve said it before, but it’s really a shame the federal DOT won’t allow the free market to supply an electric car that makes sense. There are several warm climate communities that high quality golf car infrastructure, and this sort of thing could be expanded to other cities if a weatherized version were easily had. Sure, it wouldn’t come with ludicrous speed and level 2 autonomy, but who cares about that anyway? If it doesn’t take up much room in the garage and charges easily on a 120 V outlet (and doesn’t require registration, insurance and all that other TCO stuff), there’d be a market. Or at least the tradeoffs would be more palatable.

But instead we get the “moonshots.” I’m not saying there’s no place for basic battery research, but why subsidize the one-for-one replacement that might never happen? If CO2 is such horrible stuff any incremental decrease is of value.

https://golfcarts.org/peachtree-city-ga-golf-cart-paradise/

The globalist technocrats are calling for vastly reducing private ownership of automobiles. They might call it a “breakthrough for saving the planet from cliiiiiiiiimate change” but of course, THEY won’t be giving up THEIR vehicles. No, THEY want US to give up OUR vehicles.

https://www.technocracy.news/global-warming-wef-calls-for-vastly-restricted-car-ownership-by-2050/

According to wikipedia, the fuel economy car Mitsubishi Mirage is made in Thailand, it sells in Thailand for ฿474,000 (Baht), which converted to USD is $13,678.30, but of course you can NOT buy it here for that price.

China and India produce a plethora of inexpensive cars, which they could easily sell less than 10 grand here, but none of those models are offered here. Can you imagine a $6,000 car right now that gets 50 mpg? Yeah, that is possible but that kind of car is kept out of our market on purpose.

Price fixing is a game – you can see this directly with fuel prices or car prices – each nation has it’s own market exploiting the wealth level of that nation. Take a look at gasoline prices around the world:

https://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/

Just a short pond jump south of Houston, Texas (major oil shipping port) is Caracus, Venezuela which currently sells gasoline for $0.12 (12cents) per US gallon. Poor nations have lower gas prices – for the biggest commodity on the planet – which ought to be universally the exact same price. Right? But it is not.

Of course such talk is “conspiracy theories” by nutballs, but as I like to say, yep I am a conspiracy theorist who is usually right 100% of the time. LOLROFL Note how anyone living on a island, like Japan, Guam, Hawaii, or Britain are screwed for gasoline price. The island is small, can’t drive very far, so you pay out the nose.

Amerika is “wealthy nation” because the Fed has inflated home values – creating artificial wealth – which can be borrowed at low rates. Thus in Amerika, only expensive cars with shitty fuel economy are sold – to shear the sheeple. That is a conspiracy theory alright, and supported by objective facts.

To fight energy exploitation, I drive an old Geo Metro, which I paid $500, and fixed, that gets 55 mpg. Once a week I fill it up (7 gallons) after driving around 400 miles. I have no interest in making Rex Tillerson (iconic Exxon CEO – Trump Secretary of State) more wealthy, so he can buy a bigger mega yacht, or bribe more politicians.

IMO it is all a game to them, like Eric says, the CEO’s of the car and oil companies are so ultra wealthy, they live in their own little world, don’t give a shit about us peons, fly jets, not cars, and are part of an exclusive Amerikan rich man’s club (read modern robber barrons). Like George Carlin says, it is a big club and we aren’t in it.

What we look like to them are figures on their balance sheet. At GM, an army of accountants, lawyers, sales agents, statiticians, marketing personalities have us and our wealth level figured out – and even if they go bankrupt they own the politicians and get bailed out.

“The ’80 Chevette listed for $4,917 – equivalent to just over $12,000 in today’s debauched currency.”

Interesting point. The issue is not simply that the currency is debauched, though. The issue is that you CAN’T buy a $12,000 car AT ALL in today’s market.

IF people COULD buy brand-new Chevettes — or equivalent — for $12,000 — GM would make so much money that Mary Barra could afford enough plastic surgery to look hot again. But it’s just about impossible to find a sub-$30k car today, let alone a sub-$20k car.

So not only is the currency worth 60% less today, you also have to buy a car that costs 2-3 times more — it’s the equivalent of the Chevette costing $10-15k back in 1980.

This is all so frustrating especially as it has never been faster to fill up at Chevron. Get out, tap your credit card, pump gas, and get back in your car. Less than 5 minutes later you are on the road again with almost 400 miles of range with a compact car. You cannot beat that. I finally got the BMW M340 what a joy it is to drive. The leasing agent was describing how great the e versions of their cars were while acknowledging we are “not ready” because the infrastructure is not sufficient yet. Regarding the range issue he said: How often do you drive 400 miles? Are you kidding me? This is what is now coming out of car salesman’s mouths. Trying to sell crap and spin less convenience as somehow maybe not better but still totally fine. I get triggered by the doublespeak nowadays. My husband retorted that we drive to visit relatives pretty often and once he fills up his pickup we can drive all the way to LA on one tank and still have enough to make it halfway home. But that is not even the main point which is there is no need whatsoever to go all electric. At least I may have a few years to enjoy a good car. Props to BMW for still allowing all the assist features to be turned off. I really do not want a heads up display flashing the speed limit in my eyeballs. The lane departure in my last car that nearly caused me to have an accident is now permanently turned off. We will see how long this lasts though because as Eric has pointed out I am connected and BMW knows when I am speeding. Maybe the car will decide for me to default all the assists on at some point. Because they, not me are in control of the vehicle’s functions when it is all said and done. It is so sad that insane, drunk on power politicians will be the reason hard working people like me will have their wonderful cars and trucks taken from them or rendered useless.

There is a difference between a “breakthrough” and just shifting costs. I wonder if this codpiece by having a fast-charging time also has half the battery life?

A thought crossed my mind after reading this:

I remember in one of my science books in high school a picture of a future “gas station” in which electric cars pulled in and a robot replaced their batteries.

Inall of this EV mishegoss, no one to my knowledge is talking about creating standardized, easily swapped batteries, or designing EVs to take swappable batteries.

If this was so, the next step would be to build a chain of “battery stations” where folks could pull in and swap out batteries, either by a “pit crew” or by robots. You could “refuel” in 5-10 minutes that way.

Yes, this setup has its own set of problems and obstacles, some of which are difficult if not impossible to overcome. But it seems to make sense as a way of dealing with the problem of limited range.

The fact that there hasn’t been much discussion about such an idea in any detail speaks volumes about the feasibility of widespread adoption of EVs, not to mention the real reasons for EV mania.

I’m not a EE so the electrical stuff is over my head. So what’s so special about the $139K that it defies the laws of physics compared to the other eeeeeeveeeee batteries and charging systems?

Btw I’m gonna have “silent lucidity” by Queensrÿche stuck in my head now.

Speaking of the I-95 “breakthrough” in Philadelphia:

BRIDGE EXPERT CAN’T RECALL LAST TIME A SPAN WAS BROUGHT DOWN BY FIRE

“It just doesn’t happen. I can’t recall a time when it has. It’s extremely difficult to melt a bridge.”

https://twitter.com/isource_news/status/1668486678305214464

Dude obviously hasn’t heard of 9/11, when jet fuel burning at the temperature of the sun’s surface melted two whole buildings. /sarc

Clownworld, comrades: it doesn’t have to make sense.

We had a large Jeep gathering down here in Florida, and I was thinking about the future all-electric Wrangler that the Stellantis morons have planned. I told my wife “You can’t carry Jerry Can batteries” and wondered aloud if people would spend thousands to customize one of these battery-powered terrors. Also, what happens if the battery pack gets punctured by a rock on the Moab trail?

The fact that Eric is the only writer who points this out is a credit to him and a pox upon car “journalism,” which is populated with awful lickspittles chasing payola.

‘It is a metric of the insanity of our times that “breakthroughs” are measured in terms of more cost and less functionality than that which preceded.’ — eric

In fact, it’s a metric of a non-market economy (NME) — a term of art actually used in US tariff laws. State-commanded production of consumer goods serves national or ideological goals. Price and quality are simply residuals — and since unimportant, are predictably bad. Ask a silver-haired ex-East German about the Trabant he had to wait five years to buy, for five years’ salary.

Though it still exhibits pockets of economic freedom, at its pinnacle the US is a rigid command economy. Its single most important price — the interest rate on short-term borrowing — is arbitrarily set by a Gang of Twelve apparatchiks.

Today at 2 pm, they will announce whether the Fed Funds rate stays in a 5.00-5.25% range, or ‘jumps up a notch’ to 5.25-5.50%. Since Wall Street assigns 90% probability to the former (a ‘pause’), this will be the Street’s reaction in the unlikely event the latter option is selected:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFeVfwDvTyM

Our monetary emperors have no clothes. Yet no little kids — much less the squalid rabble of baying presstitutes — remark on this obvious fact. Strange.

This is reflective of how our society has degraded. Instead of valuing honesty, integrity and reason, we glorify cheating, duplicity and The Con. I may disagree with a man like RFJ, Jr. on issues but, he seems honest and dealing with facts not fiction. Unlike Biden who, when confronted by a woman who disagrees with him, calls a woman “a lying dog-faced pony soldier”. He doesn’t deal in reality but, engages in ad hominem attacks when confronted.

People seem to want to trick their way to the top, not deal honestly win or lose. It reminds me of that very old line, “You can’t cheat an honest man.”

Next thing you know, EVs will come with a crank handle charger that only takes 10-20 hours to charge the battery to 50%, or less. That will be called improvement, because now if your EV goes dead in the middle of nowhere, you can simply get out the crank and start charging your battery, and charging, and charging. Of course you can’t keep up the charging with a crank if it’s cold outside, but you can keep the battery warm enough not to damage it. Maybe.