We are told that replacing the cars and trucks we have with battery-powered devices that cost more and weigh a lot more and that entail using up more natural resources is a necessary transition.
In fact, it is “necessary” . . . to set the stage for the next transition.
That being the elimination of personal transportation. They didn’t tell us this at the beginning of this transition, of course – for all the obvious reasons. Just as they did not tell us that a “case” does not mean someone’s sick, that “masks” don’t work and that “vaccines” won’t stop the spread.
Now they are telling us what will become “necessary” – once the transition to battery powered devices becomes a fait accompli.
“Heavier EVs are Causing Safety and Pollution Problems,” reads the banner headline in today’s Automotive News. “The progress automakers made taking weight off vehicles over the past decade is quickly being erased by EVs, jeopardizing safety and causing pollution.”
This is all true, of course.
EVs are almost . . . ludicrously heavy, on account of the weight of their batteries. A typical small EV weighs a third again more than an otherwise similar non-electric car. Electric trucks weigh as much as two (or more) mid-sized non-electric cars. And this weight adds weight – the heavier structure needed to handle the weight of a battery that weighs a lot more than most V8 engines (the latter weigh about 500 pounds fully dressed; a typical EV battery pack weighs close to twice that and some – as in EV trucks – weigh four times that). Plus the additional weight necessary to protect that fire-prone battery from being damaged – and catching fire. 
All of that weight bears down on the EV’s tires, which must be larger to bear all of that weight and which wear out faster – resulting in more oil being used and (here it comes!) emissions of particulates, which actually are pollutants in that particulates do foul the environment, unlike carbon dioxide.
Which the manufacturing of EVs – in particular, those massive EV batteries – also causes more of, thereby obviating the putative justification for this “essential” transition.
More, in other words, will inevitably lead to less.
Just not quite yet. Not until the trap has been sprung. Once there is no longer an alternative to battery powered devices, problems will be found with battery powered devices.
Like the other problem attending all of this gratuitous weight. Which cannot be reduced absent some Great Leap Forward in battery technology. The one we’ve been hearing is right around the corner since circa 1995.
The faithfully Leftist (and so, faithfully anti-car) journal Nature tells us all about the weight problem in a study quoted by Axios: “The authors — while warning this is a back-of-the-envelope tally — say the cost of extra lives lost by adding 1,500 pounds to a truck ‘rivals the climate benefits’ of avoided emissions.”
In other words, EVs aren’t safe.
This is also true. It is physics. If your 3,300 pound non-electric car is T-boned by a 9,063 pound (yes, really) Hummer EV you will find out all about it.
In the next world.
So, if EV emissions aren’t reason enough to force most of them off the roads, as EVs themselves are in the process of being used to do to cars that are safer and that “emit” fewer “emissions” overall (by dint of requiring fewer materials to manufacture them and by dint of burning through more resources to power them) then safety will serve to do the same.
These “risks” can be “addressed” – the words chosen are always soft-sell ones, designed to efface the hard truth of the force that will be applied to “address” the “risks” created by the use of force in the first place – via “policy changes” such as “vehicle registration charges based on weight to encourage the use of lighter vehicles.”
Italics added.
When they say “encourage” they mean force, of course.
Such force will be applied to get EVs off the roads once that’s all or mostly what’s allowed on the roads. If you are worried about being able to afford a $50,000 EV – the latter being the average price paid for a new EV – don’t worry about it. Because you won’t be able to afford what it will cost to register it. And if that’s not “incentive” enough to “encourage” you to “walk, bike or take public transit,” as the Nature piece puts it – there are always other “incentives” available in the tool kit of “stakeholders,” which doesn’t include you.
These include – but are by no means limited to – increasing the cost of the electricity they intend to make you exclusively dependent upon, by eliminating alternatives to it and by increasing demand for it while decreasing the available supply of it. 
One it becomes extortionately expensive to keep the lights (and ‘fridge) in your home on, it will become . . . unsustainable to drive the EV you probably couldn’t afford to buy.
Or register.
And if that’s still not enough enough, then how about driving you off the road by taxing you extortionately for every mile you drive? The EV can debit your CBDC account as you drive. Watch your balance evaporate along with your range.
This will, in the words of the Nature study’s authors, “ensure a better future for everyone.”
. . .
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Eric,
Do you think that, with the lack of sales and lack of acceptance of EVs (they’re piling up on dealer lots, and dealers are refusing to take more), there’s any chance of derailing the EV tarbaby? Toyota is betting on hybrids, as they surmise that EVs aren’t quite ready for prime time.
No bueno, it seems the charade may be coming apart in some areas: https://euobserver.com/green-economy/157364
Timely article Eric! I heard today, quick snippet on a am news radio broadcast, saying something about Pete Buttieg ( I won’t even try to spell it correctly) looking into the equity / systemic racism of cars and that’s another reason to eliminate them altogether ! lol Really …..it’s what was said!
Thanks, Rob!
Buttigieg is an oily little Marxist like his father. This is a statement of fact, not abuse. And – like all Marxists – the poverty he espouses in the name of “equity” is for us and not for him. He will not give up a car, or air travel, or a warm place to live and plenty to eat. That is for us.
These people are the scum of the earth.
https://notthebee.com/article/buttigiegs-equity-advisers-say-all-cars-are-bad-want-you-to-stop-driving/ Here is another article enforcing the idea Eric has been telling us all along.
The thing is, they are open about cutting our driving. The local “planner” (NW Indiana outside Chicago) to me talks about wanting to cut HALF of car trips in the area. Yes, HALF! Never mind the area covers six counties and is very decentralized. Never mind that there is little or no “public” transit, and it doesn’t go anywhere useful. Never mind that few residents want to live in a dense urban “environment” (many people find suburbia far too dense).
If anything car trips will likely double.
Overweight EV’s y’all? I predict that soon, some 20-year-old WEF Communist will reduce your monthly quota of bugs by half because an algorithm says you are two pounds too heavy…..
Killing off the ice powered vehicles….
Now there is talk about crude oil going to $300 per barrel…..
Combined with huge insurance cost increases and restrictions on where you can drive them….
The tax slaves/debt slaves will be walking…around their 15 minute city/prison….
The luciferion aristocracy will still be driving their ice powered Ferrari’s and Porsche’s….
To “ensure a better future for everyone” we need to dispose of the Psychopaths In Charge, one and all.
Another way to get rid of old ice cars…….AI traffic cameras to identify and fine drivers of older vehicles who enter the city
Don’t Look Up! ‘Orwellian’ AI Traffic Cameras Raise Privacy Concerns
Existing traffic cameras set up across America to find speeding and red light scofflaws are being replaced by smarter, artificial intelligence-fueled versions equipped with upgraded software that for the first time gives the government the ability to monitor behavior inside of private vehicles
In July, local governments in Australia installed new phone-detection cameras along roads to spot drivers who are texting on their mobile devices.
In the United Kingdom, authorities have already issued hundreds of fines to drivers after AI traffic cameras were used to detect violations such as not wearing a seatbelt.
In at least one other country, residents have already begun fighting back against the technology.
After London rolled out an expansion of its Ultra Low Emission Zone program, which uses AI traffic cameras to identify and fine drivers of older vehicles who enter the city, many citizens showed their outrage through acts of vandalism.
Police say this month hundreds of intelligent cameras have been damaged, disconnected, or stolen by a vigilante group who call themselves the Blade Runners. 1 in 4 out of action, 90% in the poorest part of London.
“The cameras are going to keep coming down,” Nick Arlett, an organizer of the protests, told CBS News. “People are angry.”
from zh comments….
Nothing quite as “righteous” as investing the money they’ve STOLEN FROM US (aka: ‘”taxes”) into new ways to steal ever MORE of our time, our money AND our privacy.
It’s 100% Unlawful and Illegal by just infringing upon Freedom of Association alone.
It’s crazy how quickly this crap has reared its ugly head… it’s everywhere. We’ve been apathetic for so long as a nation and we’ve let this evil take over our country. If you really think about it is quite horrifying.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dont-look-orwellian-ai-traffic-cameras-raise-privacy-concerns
100s Of ULEZ Cameras Destroyed By Vigilante Group Following Wider London Roll-Out
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/100s-ulez-cameras-destroyed-vigilante-group-following-wider-london-roll-out
cameras?…..does this work?
Throwflame TF-19 WASP drone flamethrower
https://youtu.be/07rtBip9ixk
That’s pretty easy to guard against. If you look at the Nazicams, they are encased in a decent gage of steel and a tempered glass lens. So small caliber projectiles and fire wont do much to them. It’s almost like the gov anticipated resistance. There is also the problem of the omnipresent cameras nearby. Paint over the lenses is effective, but easily removed, and it’s just taxpayer money being spent to do that daily maintenance.
Remember obedient friends, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. The trap has been building for decades, it’s going to require gnawing your leg off to get out of it.
I have a spare leg.
So small caliber projectiles wont do much to them. Horse excrement. a 22 long rifle will shoot through a plow share. Been there, done that.
One off tickets may seem cheap or “affordable” but riding “mass transit” every day to commute to/from a job was extremely expensive even 20 years ago. My commute cost $500-600 a month for all the various passes/monthly tickets to get to/from North Jersey to downtown NYC every day. Crowded, stuck next to smelly vagrants selling a single AA battery, hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and late every fucking Friday afternoon coming home. Some sadistic shit.
Can’t imagine what that might cost nowadays, though, since coofy doof-19, it seems like nobody commutes to an office anymore. Sometimes, I think I know why so many people “played along.”
Good write Eric but by now we should all understand that logic doesn’t work. They just laugh it off and come up with something even more stupid. If blame is required,,, those yellow prison transports full of young sponges soaking up all the indoctrination spewed at the centers for mind destruction, aka schools.
I live by a ‘school’ and everyday dozens of busses drop off the innocents while mums and pops are off stocking Walmart shelves with foreign made junk. The innocents are then indoctrinated to the Feminist and communist/fascist/technocratic ideology we see spreading like a plague today. Then they go out and glue themselves to roadways to protest the things their handlers say. This will only stop when the entire system fails.
Or we stop jackhammering their hands from the asphalt….I say let them stay there. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Indeed, there are consequences to almost anything one does.
It’s not just the EVs that are being used to destroy autonomous transportation. Pretty much all of the ICE vehicles manufactured in the last 15 years are just as much a part of the anti-driving agenda by reason of the fact that they have become so complex and delicate that they are becoming economically non-feasible to repair once they are out-of-warranty and suffer one major mechanical or electronic malfunction, or two just a couple of more minor malfunctions.
Government mandates, under the guise of “saaaafety” and fuel-economy/emissions reduction have resulted in these vehicles being festooned with ungodly levels of computerized electronics that affect the entire vehicle as a whole, and requiring the use of gobs of plastic and aluminum parts, which do not age well nor hold-up as well as steel.
I was watching Youtuber Uncle Tony last night in which he was detailing how moisture getting into the tail light housing of a modern F150 (IIRC)- which on an older vehicle would have just resulted in a bulb going bad, and maybe some corrosion in the bulb socket- which is a super-simple fix that anyone could accomplish for under $10- in the F150’s case resulted instead in a computer module going bad from high resistance, which in turn resulted in several other modules going bad, to the point where the truck would not start…and ultimately, ended up costing FIFTY-SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS to repair! -From moisture in the tail light housing…..
He also rightly mentioned how that salvage yards are filling up with not-very-old vehicles with pristine bodies and paint and suspensions, etc., just because the tranny went bad and would cost many THOUSANDS to replace, or because they had a few electronic issues which would exceed the value of the car to fix.
How’s THAT for a waste of resources (and money!)?! Not to mention that that is resulting in a scarcity of viable older used cars, and thus driving the prices sky-high of the viable cars which do still exist. Pretty soon, if you can not afford to buy a new car -EV or ICE- and to replace it quite often, you will not be able to afford to drive! We are closer to the end of driving for the average person than many realize.
Uncle Tony video:
The Insanity Of Modern Automotive Electronics:
https://youtu.be/ANxhQ4wUiMQ?si=ZPxJXuGy62B0cg52
You are absolutely right, Nunz. These new cars are packed with so much technology that no one (even someone with auto mechanical experience) can try to work/repair them. The changing of the brakes requires resetting the whole control board.
My ongoing saga with Cadillac/GM is a fight. They put a refurbished motor in the car. How many miles does this reburnished motor have on it? GM’s response “We don’t know.” So I went from a barely used new engine to an engine that could have 40K (or more) miles on it!?!? They still won’t address the brake issue which was the reason that we sent the car in for service. They keep telling us that the engine fixed the brake problem. How the hell does that work? We were told it was all interconnected. No thanks, they can keep their car. Still sitting at the dealership as we speak. I expect to be threatened with storage costs or towing shortly.
I am not getting rid of my Toyota or the Ford. The parts are affordable and hubby can fix anything on it. These car manufacturers can keep their new technology rides. These new cars are going to kill somebody. There is nothing safe about them.
going to kill several somebodies. So the next time the psychopaths claim they are doing something for your safety, you can call them a bald faced liar. Again.
FOR REAL, RG! My first car was a 1966 Chevy Chevelle two door. The thing was dirt simple; if you had a good set of hand tools, a timing light, and a tach & dwell meter, you could easily do 90% of the work on it. I did most of the work on it too! I’m no mechanic, but I learned enough to keep mechanics from BSing me. Now, with the modern cars, you need special, proprietary tools from the manufacturer, and you need computers to talk to your car’s computers. NFW would I try working on a modern car…
Hey Nunzio! I saw that one, too. I sent a link to Eric when I did, but you beat us to it posting here, lol! Sheeple believe All this automated crap is great, until a tail light lense leak causes $5K+ in repairs. Tail lights have been leaking since their inception, but with far less expense incurred. Then about 20+ years ago some of them started appearing with integrated circuitry instead of wired bulb sockets. That crap was always failing, and expensive to replace, as repairs were just not possible. Seems like they are desperate to make the whole situation even worse, now. This is right up there with putting the ECM on the car battery, or the voltage regulator integrated into the ECM. It’s built in self-destruction, no ifs ands or buts.
Sometimes you own the car,
But, if you still owe 30 grand on the auto,
It sometimes owns you….
Always with the interim steps and always in baby steps. I think many suspected this was where we were going all along, yet most were unable to admit it to themselves. Control freaks never stop striving until they have full control/total compliance. As a recovering control freak of over 20 years, its very easy to see it all around you. Although not always easy to see in oneself.
You touched on the weight issue and the tires. How these much heavier vehicles need bigger tires. They’ll wear out faster as well. The manufacturing of so many necessary tires is bad for the environment. The process uses tons of oil and puts ‘stuff’ in the air. The PTB could introduce wheels made of stone tomorrow, and half of the country that buys into this green new deal would cheer. A few years down the road, after many of us had reasoned, cajoled, and screamed our lungs out against stone tires, TPTB would start crying about how hard cars are on the surface of the roads.
Fast forward a few more years, Now fully grown from its current infancy, the Marxist beast that rules our country would simply ban all means of transport not under their complete control.
It started with the registration and licensing of cars and drivers. Once you need permission, you come under control and are easily manipulated. When you see licensing established, know for a certainty that that which is being licensed is destined for destruction. So with cars…so with guns…so with putting a picket fence around your suburban home…….
At this point Nunzio it looks like the whole world is destined for destruction. Cant have those plebes enjoying the modern amenities attached to civilization. I found some spots here in SE Alaska that look like they are property tax free. Temperate rainforest climate _60 inches of rainfall a year, lots of food and game, relatively inexpensive RE. High sales tax though, and you need to ferry or own a boat, to get anything, or go anywhere.
Wish I was 20, even 10 years younger. It gets harder to pull up stakes with age. We only have one oldster left tying us to the lower 48. I know you’ve talked about Tiera Del Fuego. Maybe check out parts of SE Alaska. Prince of Wales Island looks as close to a Libertarian paradise as I’ve found so far. The main down side is the proximity to Canada.
Hey, Norman,
The only libertarian paradise is a place far enough removed from civilization/the infrastructure that nobody cares to enforce their rule there.
And it’s going to get a lot worse, soon- Bill Gates is now saying that in the next upcoming plandemic, those who refuse the jabs will be excluded from society- so if we’re going to be excluded anyway…might as well be in a place where we can be free, rather than where we have to live in hiding as supplicants and ‘criminals’. This stuff is getting real!
I may be 61, but I’ll be going… I refuse to die in this police state- and even more so, I refuse to live in this police state.
I’m coming around to that exact view Nunzio. Things are not going to return to normality. 10% fighting against the hive mind, who lost themselves in their phones, will not be enough when the next plandemic comes along.
If I’m going to be treated as an outlaw I might as well live outside the law. SA seems best as it is off the 5G grid. Still I don’t like being a gringo in a strange land. Some of these islands in SE Alaska are mostly off the grid. The Tlingit tribes are pretty autonomous in many areas. They also seem to not hate everyone. There are places you can be far away from civilization, yet still an hour by boat, from burrows of 2-3K people for staples.
I haven’t figured out what I would do with myself, still being a tiny bit of a human animal. After splitting fire wood, fishing, hunting, trapping, working on the cabin, I might get bored. Gardening would be tough up here but a green house and some photo-trons might give me a couple tomatoes and some broccoli every year. I’ve truly been spoiled by gardening in the AZ sunlight.
Then theres my wife. She’s not quite 100% convinced yet. Still a bit of a normal as she just turned 62 and started collecting her SS. She’s coming around though as we already did the homestead thing once. Maybe I’d start carving moose antlers and trade them for some quanta loons in the local village.
Gold panning is a thing as well. Its no wonder the Russians, Canadians, and Norweigians loved this place so much. The only other place I’ve ever been where food is in such abundance is the Virgin Islands where fish is harder to get but fruit is everywhere.
Hi Norman,
Buy a boat and live among the sea. I decided I am going to plant mine right between St Martin and Anguilla. The islands are so close together that one could also tour St Barts, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Saba. Close enough for supplies, if needed, and far away from everything else. Nobody knows who you are, nor do they care. Just have to get out of the way of the hurricanes.
Hi RG,
I owned a boat once for about 10 years, Living on one, although doable would be a bit problematic for me. That area is very nice down there. If you did live on a boat that would be the place to do it. Lots of places to go between/hide out. Anyone living down there who starved isn’t doing it right.
Some of these remote places in SE Alaska you can still get beachfront on a remote island for reasonable $$$. If I find some that are property tax free, I might pull the pin. You have to be sure what you can do without, and what you can’t.
Starting to tell myself a harder existence albeit free might be better than a storied life of ease. At least I’m free, life being hard is probably better than 5 feet under or a FEMA camp.
‘the Marxist beast that rules our country would simply ban all means of transport not under their complete control.’ — Norman Franklin
So far, self-driving systems (Tesla, Waymo, et al) have not mastered the intricacies of detours, wonky lane stripes, no stripes on rural roads, and so forth.
But as they improve, an argument will be advanced that robot drivers make fewer mistakes than human drivers. So saaaaaaaafety dictates that humans be prohibited from just roaming around the landscape under their own unreliable control.
Impaired driver detectors coming in 2026 will be the camel’s nose under the tent. These will support a presumption that ALL human driving, even when stone sober, is fundamentally impaired versus the unerring attention of an algorithm.
Unless, that is, some Joker jacks the Feed and sends all the robocars skittering helter-skelter into each other. 🙂
Trouble ahead
A lady in red
Take my advice
You’d be better off dead
Switchman sleeping
Train hundred and two is
On the wrong track
And headed for you
— Grateful Dead, Casey Jones
‘Watch your balance evaporate along with your range.’ — eric
Both your bank balance and your mental balance, that is.
What Eric describes in his essay is the systematic imposition of learned helplessness:
‘In 1967, Prof. Seligman and Prof. Steven F. Maier first described their theory of learned helplessness. They conducted studies on dogs, in which they exposed the animals to a series of electric shocks.
‘The dogs that could not control the shocks eventually showed signs of depression and anxiety. Those that could press a lever to stop the shocks did not.
‘In follow-up research, the dogs that could not control the shocks in the first experiment did not even try to avoid the shocks, despite the fact that they could have done so by jumping over a barrier. They had learned to become helpless.’
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325355#history
Our Uniparty usurpers have gone feral, deliberately tormenting their ‘constituents.’
But some of us dogs won’t eat the dog food.
*sharpens his canine teeth with a bastard file*
There already exists a precedent for all of this—Soviet and Red Chinese cities.
The Soviet Union had 15-minute cities long before they were cool. People lived in gigantic stack-a-prole high rises (many of which still stand today) and took electric buses everywhere. (The electric buses were basically trolley cars with rubber tires instead of tracks.) These cities had “universalniy magazini” (general stores) that was state owned and as you can imagine, were always short on lousy goods.
The most well known of these was Pripyat, which was the city where Chernobyl was built.
This is entirely predicable. Each and every one of the assholes in the governnment knows that these things are heavy, catch fire, and damaging to lithium miners overseas.
I hope that they are playing their hand too quickly. I’d like to take their hand and shove it down their throat
The form letter people will be receiving from the DMV
Your vehicle cannot be registered due to the following reasons:
Vehicle weight exceeds maximum allowed weight
Vehicle does not have maximum safety devices installed
Vehicle has been driven outside assigned 15 minute zone
Vehicle emits particulate emission in excess of federal allowable standards
Vehicle speakers emit sound in excess of allowable 10 decibels
Vehicle has been driven at speeds in excess of federal 45 mph maximum speed limit
To unlock your vehicle and avoid additional penalties pay $5,562.86 by September 1.
This will be my reply. _ shove it up your ass.
Mail that letter when you send 50% of the fruit of your labors to the IRS…. 😀
Indeed, In Communisota, when you refuse to pay a “fine” they turn it over to the IRS for addition to property tax for collection by those fine folks. I’m sure it’s similar other places, though Communisota has been run by the hammer and sickle machine for a very long time.
Ask me how I know this…
>Vehicle speakers emit sound in excess of allowable 10 decibels
Speakers detected emitting actual music, comprising both rhythm and melody, rather than obscene grunts by ignorant thugs (a.k.a. “rap”).
New car dealerships are turning away from getting MORE EVs in their inventory, as the existing EVs on lots just aren’t selling……is the Biden Thing going to try to “solve” that by decreeing MANDATES for people who already own a gas powered vehicle to give that up and buy one of the EVs just sitting on lots? Given that this regime has increasingly taken authoritarianism in this country to unprecedented heights, I wouldn’t put it past this regime.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/we-have-turned-away-inventory-us-ev-market-struggles-cars-pile-dealer-lots
The elephant in the room is the significant extra weight (mass) of the battery packs which must be hauled by electric trucks and railroad trains. Highway trucks have a maximum GVW. Whatever additional weight is required by substituting a battery pack for liquid hydrocarbon fuel decreases the payload. Result: more trucks on the road will be required in order to haul the same quantity of goods.
Same applies to railway locomotives. Back in the day, steam locomotives required a tender car full of coal or wood to fuel the locomotive. For railway lines which do not have continuous electric power available, either from a third rail or overhead power lines, the same requirement will exist, except likely more than one battery tender car. Every tender car is one less car hauling freight, i.e. paying customers (payload).
Of course, expecting most politicians to understand this is a bit like attempting to teach a pig to sing. As someone once said, “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”
Lefties have been pushing public transportation for decades. Hell I remember 3-2-1 Contact doing so in the early 80s. They won’t stop until they have complete control over every facet of your life.
I just love it when people go to Europe and laud their “mass transit” system. I reply.. move there and stay the fuck out of ours. The interstate highway system is the most efficient mass transit system in world history
Hi Swamp,
I’ve been to Europe; the difference – there vs. here – is that the countries of Western Europe are the size of American states and much more densely populated. Distances are less and most people live in/near a major city. So – for them – “mass transit” (i.e., government transit) may “work” ok. But not better, even so, than being able to just drive wherever you need or just want to be, without planning. Without being on someone else’s schedule.
That random freedom of movement is what these people want to end here.
Eric – Yes. For sure. And, I believe that it is a big draw for the immigration over the last 60 years. I have no doubt about it.
Affordable individual transportation (and the fact I can only speak one language) is the only reason I am still here.
Our other “freedoms” don’t mean much without having the ability to travel as you please.
Hi Swamp,
I speak viable (if grammatically crippled) German and could go to Switzerland, as I have a Swiss passport. But I can’t afford to live in Switzerland. Or – rather – I could only afford an apartment and forget the Trans-Am. So I stay here – and will deal with what comes, come what may.
Their mass transit is heavily subsidized, mainly by fuel taxes that are part of the reason Europeans pay $8/gallon. Maybe Jeremy, James, and Richard aren’t fazed by those petrol prices, but I’m sure most European motorists have to scrimp to fill the tanks of their Donald Duck rides.
Back in 2019, the wife and I went to England and Belgium. The mass transit in England is fucken retarded. Holy shit, it was nuts. From those stupid (aka iconic) double decker buses to the damn “tube”, it was just awful.
The EuroStar is nice but you don’t ride that to go to work, get groceries, or go to a pub. Same thing with the rural trains from London out to the country side, they’re fine and dandy. Same going from Brussels to Bruge.
But anything local was a dirty cluster fuck from hell.
In Toronto, the subways are nice enough but going anywhere you want to go during any normal business hours is a super cluster fuck. Much nicer than the Brit’s “tube” which is broken down dirty shit, stupid small, and like breathing in a sauna.
Toronto did upgrade some of their trolley line when I was there. Brand spanking new but again, way too many people and too few trains. Their buses reminded me of the Brit’s ‘tube”, i.e., old as fuck, dirty as shit, smelly and narrow. Full of selfish assholes. “Canadians are SO polite!” Yeah bull-fucken-shit if they are!
Vancouver is about the same as Toronto, last I was there.
In all of the above, if you can walk the distance, you’re better off, even if it’s quite a ways. Secondarily, getting an uber, lyft or cab. But London cabs are mostly antique shit too.
This is why, generally speaking, I hate all cities. If I have to drive to one, like I did out to Philly (or often to DC), then add in the fucking parking nightmare and fucked up roads.
Liberal bastards deserve to be in those fucken 15 minute shit holes. That’s what they voted for. But for everyone else with a shred of self-respect or dignity, it’s hell.
>But anything local was a dirty cluster fuck from hell.
When I lived in metro Boston, Mass, many years ago, Park Street Station, on Boston Common, always seemed to smell bad. The “T” into Cambridge wasn’t bad, though. Seemed to get better on the Cambridge side of the Longfellow Bridge. Kendall Square was my exit.[shrug] WGASA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oaVU0I_oCA
Hi Adi,
Those were the good old days 😆. Now the red line is so slow you can walk faster; guess that’s what happens when you never do any maintenance. There were supposed to be new cars by now but the geniuses that run the T gave the contract to some Chinese outfit that has no clue how to build subway cars, rather than to Alstom or some other company that actually knows what they’re doing.
Hi, Mike,
>geniuses that run the T gave the contract to some Chinese outfit.
LOL.
Actions have consequences. 🙂
My European friends have to go through a lot more hoops to keep their cars (and drivers licenses) on the road. But they all do, because they still want their own personal cars instead of having to take public transit.
One friend even goes through the trouble of keeping a Hemi powered Chrysler 300 in Germany
(land of the don’t you dare drive something bigger than a 2.0 liter engine). I really don’t know how she got it there to be honest (never sold there as far as i know). Yikes what they make people go through to keep a plate on a car.
One thing about public transit that one probably doesn’t know about until actually using it, is the huge number of unsavory people riding said transit with you, some of which are harassing you. I was willing to give public transit a shot (even though I’m a big car guy; I was trying to save money and wear-and-tear) back over 20 years ago when I lived in Silver Spring, MD for a short while and commuted to downtown Washington DC for work. Too many nutty people (the same kind you see amongst homeless, talking to themselves and whatnot) riding the buses/trains, but the last straw was too many teenagers threatening me for money. I just said fuck it, I’ll pay to park at the parking garage at my place of business; I’m tired of this shit
“but the last straw was too many teenagers threatening me for money.
Dood,
Try to be a bit more sensitive…”Youths”, or “Children”….
The same old song. What the state proposes to solve a “problem” creates more, and worse problems than it solves. In this case in particular because the original problem did not even exist. The only “climate emergency” we have is government. It’s getting fairly obvious that Directed Energy Weapons are being used to start fires all over the world, and possibly earthquakes too. There is no boundary of the evil the state is perfectly willing to engage in.
It is the natural tendency of governments to grow. We see this in the post WWII American empire, as we did with the English, Spanish, Romans, Mongols, etc.
It has long been the desire of men in power to increase that power. That quest does not only apply beyond the borders. Domestic tyranny will grow, esp when the hold on external power slips.
The USA is Rome, and the increased internal pressure will continue until we collapse in on ourselves.
Some of the reasons Rome fell:
Economy
Overexpansion
Rise of other powers
Government corruption
Mass migration
Loss of tradition
Weak military & foreign recruiting
Rome actually fought to become an empire then fell due to arrogance, divisiveness, depravity, and greed.
The US became an empire by default. All the other nations were destroyed by the wars. It will crash and burn for the same reasons as Rome times ten. It has achieved a depravity unknown to any nation present or past. History will not be kind to this nation.
Recently spoke with an engineer who designs software for utility companies. He was telling me utility companies are at least somewhat behind the push for electrification of more transportation. With all the energy efficient appliances, lighting and HVAC being installed they need to get their loads up. Their ideal situation is running the grid on the edge of its capabilities without having to do major infrastructure upgrades like power plants and substations. EV’S are one way of accomplishing this most homes having smart meters can be remotely turned on/off by utility operators instead of the rolling blackouts like California saw in the 90’s you could have a checkerboard of off/on customers to manage the grid.
Which leads to the capabilities of a checkerboard of compliant/non-compliant (customers) being turned off and on at will.
Think about how bad the covid lock downs were and imagine if you’re no longer allowed to have food storage, heating, cooling, or transportation if you weren’t a good little citizen?
The complexity and expense of oil refinement made transportation and energy a cartel. Electrification is big oil 2.0 plus kill switch. These greenee zombies for the most part have no clue.
Is a heavier EV any different than being T boned by an 80k pound fully loaded semi? I think lefty news articles, like those written by Nature, are grasping at straws (the plastic ones, because the paper ones kill too many trees).
Everything the Left says and does is backasswards. It is like allowing the five year old to handle the family’s finances…don’t be surprised when the mortgage isn’t paid, but the pantry is full of Lucky Charms and Chips Ahoys.
Personally, I am tired of the Left and their constant fear mongering. They have no concept of reality and refuse to assess potential consequences of the decisions that they enforce upon the rest of us. I am rebuffing their views and stupid laws and I suggest everyone else do, too.
Amen, RG –
So sick (and tired) of these idiot-arrogant soy boy types and their Karen-type lampreys. I would like to see nothing more than all of them scooped up and tumbled into a gigantic blender, turned into slurry and fed to the hogs.
Hi Eric,
As it has been discussed before on this forum we need to create parallel societies. We need to avoid the large corporations and establish working relationships with local farmers and other small businesses in our communities.
You really have something against swine don’t you? What did Porky ever do to you?
Hi Douglas,
I actually like pigs! The actually hooved ones, that is.
I could say,,, if we are so manly how did the cowardly soy boys ever take control,,, but I won’t.
Because we do not desire to control anyone else. They do.
We are at a natural disadvantage due to our morality. Those who have no qualms with going against God have the advantage. It’s always been that way. It’s why we must resolve not to become like them when we resist them. God gave us the tools. Speaking and living in TRUTH is the way to defeat evil. Evil shrinks away from the light of truth.
AMEN! Kill ’em all, I say; let God sort ’em out…
RG – I have been dealing with leftists for 50 years. As a child, my older brother would bring home these books and sort of convince me to read them. The first anti-car/environment/safety book I was forced to read was “The closing circle” by Barry Commoner. The second I read on my own was Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at any speed. For year, no, decades after, I would try and defend our positions on their terms. I would try and say that the Clean Air Act of 1970 was a good thing. Pollution went down, etc. Corporate Average Fuel Economy – mileage went up, etc. The initial safety law – Motor Vehicle and Highway Safety Act of 1966 – forced automakers to build safer cars. … but I would argue against the 1990 revisions to the Clean Air Act or the latest release of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Because of that, I was arguing on their terms, on their turf. You could do that because we were a more civilized country and people were able to have discussions. In the last 10 to 15 years, it has become impossible.
Today, I am not only against what’s going on, but I’m against all forms of government regulation on the car industry. All of it. As a group, we need to push for the repeal of all auto safety regulations, all pollution regulations and abolish all federal involvement in transportation decisions unless it is a right-wing government making the correct decisions.
Since people today have the attention span of a flea and listen to nothing but government propaganda, I argue that I don’t give a crap about climate change, the environment or auto safety. Compared with the freedom that cars, motorcycles and trucks provide, those issues are a distraction. If they want to argue about roads, we pay gas taxes and tolls, so stfu.
I will make them prove that their stupid laws and regulations over the last 50 years have worked. It would be kind of fun watching these ignoramuses try and argue something that they know nothing about. You could tell the average that 500,000 people die on the highways each year and they would slurp it up with a spoon. You could show them a picture of a 1960s LA sky and tell them that the pollution needs to be cut back and they would believe the picture was taken yesterday.
What is really going on is that the FMVSS in effect today are killing people as a whole just as much as the older cars with their metal dashes, their pointed fins, their defective fins and poor braking systems killed in the 1960’s. Pedestrian fatalities have risen from a low of 3500 a year in 2009 to over 7300 today. The vast majority is due to the high beltlines and the large window pillars of today’s automobiles. (in the name of rollover and side impact crash protetion). Low outward visibility affects safety of everyone on all types of roads. High speed interstates, urban highways, medium speed arterials urban zones and low speed residential areas. All the same.
The bottom line is that I can’t prove my assertion anymore than they can prove theirs, so we need to destroy their premise instead. We don’t care about their stupid assed issues and proceed to argue how they are using them to destroy our right to drive.
I’m done being accommodating. Done
If they really wanted to improve safety and fuel economy, there would have been market pressure. It may not have happened as quickly as it did or it may have. Who knows. We may not have been burning as much fuel auto makers had been able to build more station wagons and fewer minivans and suvs. If we had larger cars, we wouldn’t have had as many crossovers. We have crossovers because cars are so expensive now that people need the car equivalent of a swiss army knife. At the face of it Crossovers fit the bill.
If we were short on gas, mini cars could have been built instead of outlawed by saaaaafety regulations. It’s a mess.
Hi Swamp,
I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: There is no good reason – no technological reason – that 60 MPG non-hybrid economy cars (and 80 MPG hybrid cars) aren’t available. That there aren’t brand-new $12,000 basic cars (and $8,000 basic EVs for short hops in urban settings).
None.
It is not about “saving” anything. It is about controlling everything and enserfing everyone.
I agree. They outlaw cars through eeeemissions and saaafety standards. Emissions standard which force air pumps back into cars and safety standards which add at least 500 lbs of extra mass to a car.
You’re right, Eric. I used to have Matchbox old fashioned cars. I remember having a toy, 1911 Maxwell. The box it came in had some basic info about the car. Do you know that that thing got 36 mpg? Today’s cars, in spite of having all this gee whiz tech, modern engines built with modern machining, and so on can’t do any better than that! A new Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, or other, similar vehicle will be lucky to get much over 36 mpg. What does THAT tell you? What’s wrong with that picture? You mean to tell me that, after more than a century has passed since the 1911 Maxwell, we can’t get any better fuel economy? GMAFB!
Yes the visibility of almost all modern cars sucks and their weight and battering ram design will slice through older models, especiallly really older ones. I saw a crash test with a 60 sedan -heavy one too – by a modern car. The 60s car was cut in half. What can you do?
Thinking that full size EVs will require additional ratings on your license, much like needing a CDL. Make it hard enough that not everyone can pass it, and then the basic driver’s license will become something akin to a Sport pilot rating: Can only be used in fair weather, in vehicles below a certain weight (like a Polaris) and not for use commerically. An electric Japanese K-Car or BMW Isetta.