It’s interesting that the EV pushers don’t allow the people they’re trying to push into EVs the kinds of EVs people might actually not need to be pushed into.
For example, the new Honda N-Van EV.
This small battery-powered van doesn’t achieve “ludicrous speed,” but it also doesn’t cost $50,000 – the low-end average sales price of the EVs Americans are allowed to buy. It costs the U.S. dollar equivalent of about $15,000. That would make it less expensive than any gas-engined vehicle you are allowed to buy (new) in this country and that might make it the kind of electric vehicle a lot of Americans might want to buy, no need for a push.
And that’s probably why they’re not going to be allowed to buy it.
Because the people pushing EVs in this country are actually using EVs as the vehicle to push most Americans out of vehicles – by making vehicles too expensive and too impractical for most Americans to be able to afford them.
Or be able to use them.
How many Americans could use a $15,000 new vehicle? Probably a lot right about now. How about a useful vehicle for that price? The N-Van has enough range (152 miles) to be just that, especially for the money. But it’s more than just that. Unlike the majority of EVs Americans are allowed to buy, the N-Van is configurable inside. It can be used to carry passengers or whatever else you need to carry. Its boxy shape would serve ideally for delivery-driver purposes and college-kid purposes. The latter could probably live inside one of these little vans and save a fortune on rent and so be able to buy much sooner.
And that, of course, is exactly the people pushing EVs do not want.
EVs such as this little Honda are exactly what EVs ought to be if in fact it is necessary to get most people into EVs, in order to ameliorate the “climate crisis,” which we’re expected to believe is something both real and serious. As well as something that can be averted – so we’re told – by pushing most of us into EVs, by pushing most everything else that isn’t an EV off the market. That latter business is done sneakily, not by outlawing the manufacturer of vehicles that aren’t electric, but by emitting regulations that are effectively impossible for vehicles that aren’t electric (at least partially) to comply with. As for example the recently emitted regulation that will require every vehicle manufacturer’s fleet of vehicles to average at least 50.4 miles-per-gallon by model year 2031.
Those that can’t are going to get cancelled. Or get a lot more expensive – and so, exclusive. It is why V8 engines have become exclusive engines already; if you can’t afford to spend at least $50,000 you can’t afford one. The six cylinder engine is becoming exclusive, too – for the same reason.
Back to the “climate crisis” we’re told is the urgently important reason for the pushing of EVs – and the pushing away of vehicles that aren’t. We are told it is necessary to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide generated by us, which is supposedly causing and worsening this asserted “crisis.”
It ought to be clear that all of this is a lie. Of a piece with the lies (and the deliberately fomented hysteria) about the cases! THE CASES! we heard about on the hour during the height of the “pandemic.” Those lies were used to guilt-herd people into wearing “masks” and living like mental patients. It was evident – to people who used their heads and registered what they were seeing as opposed to what they were being told – that “masks” weren’t “working” and people weren’t dropping dead, either.
That it was theater.
And so is this.
If that were not so, then small, affordable EVs such as the Honda N-Van (and it is merely one of many such models Americans aren’t allowed to buy) would not only be available in America but encouraged.
But they’re not safe! So emits the Lügenpresse.
That is to say, they aren’t compliant with the entire roster of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) which is not quite the same thing as being “unsafe.” They may not hold up as well in a crash. It does mean they are more likely to crash. It means they may not have all the latest required “safety” equipment to be legal for sale in this country. Well, neither does a circa 2010 Mercedes S-Class sedan. Is it “unsafe”? Would you be afraid to ride in one?
If so, you are probably still wearing a “mask.”
The point – again – is that if there is in fact a “crisis” then compliance with “safety” regulations would take a back seat to ameliorating the “crisis,” if it is one. The hypothetical risk of being hurt (or more seriously hurt) if one crashes being of less importance than preventing millions of us from dying or being badly hurt by the “crisis.”
The fact that “safety” – which is to say, compliance – trumps allowing Americans access to EVs such as the Honda N-Van makes it plain that there is no “crisis.” Merely theater.
Again.
. . .
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“The fact that “safety” – which is to say, compliance – trumps allowing Americans access to EVs such as the Honda N-Van makes it plain that there is no “crisis.” Merely theater.”
That’s exactly the way “Muricans” and other “first-worlders” want life to be: theater. Reality must be avoided AT ALL COSTS!!!
The point – again – is that if there is in fact a “crisis” then compliance with “safety” regulations would take a back seat to ameliorating the “crisis,” if it is one.
Hmm,,sounds a lot like that Warp Speed thing..
Or,if Inspectors are too few and beef have to be killed and buried because regulations and available personnel make getting them to market impossible, maybe portable butcher facilities could be put together and save ranchers such losses?
Not allowed to do…
insurance claims….
The Devious Car Insurance Scam Hidden In Your Policy! And How to Deal With it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX0whUltya8
what we are not allowed….
To buy ice cars?….
People are buying ice cars not EV’s……so cut them off….
Major Cyber Incident Paralyzes Thousands Of US Auto Dealerships
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/absolutely-speechless-major-cyber-incident-paralyzes-thousands-us-auto-dealerships
From ZH comments…
Here is another disturbing thought…maybe AI has been corrupted by Globull Warming Zealots, become Self-Aware, and decided to destroy the combustion engine auto market. Then again, it might just be demonrats.
Just wait until the CBDC arrives and the system goes down for EVERYTHING. Good times ahead.
My car is stuck in the service bay because of this.
The service guy literally can’t buy parts, get estimates, assign a mechanic or conduct business without the CDK thing running.
Slowly byte by byte the sheeple will wake up to what the bleak future of AI,PC’s, and the internet holding hands with the government will look like.
OT: Mike Rowe can’t forgive this from 2020
https://youtu.be/2RbqPfXV10U?feature=shared
I actually like this little van. The range could take me to the closest cities and back. I like that all the seats, save for the driver, fold down.
That said, $15k is still a little pricey for such a thing, but I’d still consider a purchase if, and only if, it didn’t have all the of the “safety” and “connectivity” BS built in.
The Safety Complex must be dismantled.
An automobile engineer said….
He didn’t like anti lock brakes, airbags and all the other so called safety equipment that does not promote safety……
He said it makes drivers less vigilant…..
Now they drive down the road texting….because with all the new high tech crap, you don’t have to pay attention anymore…the car can’t even crash and you will never get injured….
A driver in a Super 7 has to pay 100% attention all the time….he has to drive the car and only his skill will keep him from crashing or being hit….
The little van looks good. It is almost cheap enough to be able to tear the batteries out, stuff it with insulation to fill in the gaps, and stuff an internal combustion engine in it. That’s the only way I would drive one of them. Make it exciting by putting in a 5.3 motor
Hi Eric,
It was never about Co2 or safety. Its about controll. You wont own a car and if you do it will be “libertarian” Musks spyware that you cant fix that records everything around you and that can crash you in to a wall If CIA really needs it.
Thats the whole gist of it.
The FEDGOV is so fake and gay,
So for the unwashed masses,
It’s used ICE cars, all the way!!!
China makes a lot of cheap EV’s and most of the world’s solar panels, so to add to your point, if we cared about the environment, we’d allow those here in the US, since low prices drive adoption. Instead, we outright ban Chinese EV’s and add tremendous tariffs on the solar equipment.
It’s all a giant transfer of wealth from US consumers to US-based green energy moochers. We produce nothing here anymore, but the moochers manufacture in China and sell here, but somehow, a Chinese company selling to us for 1/3 the price is a bad thing.
In response to Europe’s new tariffs on Chinese EeeVees, China has opened an anti-dumping investigation into European pork products.
If China does impose tariffs on European pork, it will amount to punishing its own people with higher food prices, in the same way the US punishes Americans who buy Chinese solar panels with 50% tariffs. This is just biz — the lame, whimpering climate can take a back seat till after the (s)election.
As old Fred Hayek used to say, central planning ultimately chokes to death on its own internal contradictions. The nomenklatura win big. Ordinary nobodies get kicked to the curb.
Consider the constraint of keeping between a 20% and 80% charge
Liberals are such diehard narcissists, that they’re willing to put up with a $50K+ car that’s 1) inconvenient, 2) has virtually no resale value, and 3) is a ticking firebomb. All just to avoid admitting that they were wrong about EVs.
Looks like you could fit a 6kW generator into that bad boy pretty easily. Visiting Aunt Mildred in the sticks might be plausible.
But to really make it worthwhile, you can turn it into a hybrid by adding a towing package and dragging along a 50kW diesel generator in a trailer. Might even be worth it. 20k for the generator, 10k for the trailer, you are still less than any EV you can buy here.
*When green energy becomes farce.*
For 15,000 dollars, you will have an EV that is simple and usable along with being affordable, it is a bargain. Buyers would form block long lines. You will want to buy one, doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. No worries there, might even be fun to have one.
A 70,000 dollar truck will be a museum piece, you won’t even want to get inside.
Spring is still here until 3:50 PM today then summer begins.
It is National Summer Day, it’ll be National Summer Day until Sept 20 or so.
A bottle of tequila and you can mix up margaritas.
I’ve suspected for a long time that .gov will not be happy until all industry has been destroyed not just here but throughout the first world countries. By their logic it is better to shut down good paying jobs here and export them to Mexico and China and have them use coal powered plants without “scrubbers” to power them.
I read that Tupperware was closing their last U.S. based factory and shifting production to Mexico by the end of the year. Even Henry Ford realized that you had to pay enough to allow your workers to be able to afford to buy the products that they built. Who is going to buy all these products weather it be cars or cast iron frying pans if no one has a job?
The above is just a couple reasons why people can’t afford a new ICE car let alone a firetrap of an EV.
The U.S. has a very large industrial base, even yet. Just nowhere near as large as it used to be, and very few consumer goods. Most U.S. manufactured goods are sold to other businesses, not on store shelves. The one major exception I can think of is automobiles…and the OEMs that make the most stuff in the USA are most definitely *not* Ford, GM, or “Stellantis.” 🏭
‘They aren’t compliiiiiiant with the entire roster of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).’ — eric
And noncompliance is nonexistence.
How could this change at the stroke of a pen? I’m no fan of executive rule, a latter stage of totalitarianism, in which some electrified cadaver like ‘Biden’ can just up and declare that $10,000 of every student loan is forgiven. Nor do I endorse any of the malevolent menagerie currently vying for president/emperor — I may write in Mister Ed, the talking horse, who also can sing after a fashion. (‘IIIIIIII am Mister Ed.‘)
But it’s droll to imagine an orange-maned Caesar just blowing away the FMVSS by declaring ‘open import season’ for any vehicle you want to bring in. Thousands of EPA ‘crats would be exposed in an instant as useless eaters, to be paraded through the streets in tiger cages as we joyfully poke them with sharpened sticks, crying ‘Heh! Heh!
Competent drivers would be a hell of a lot better than all the stupid crap mandated into current automobiles. Ever since I was 18, I swore people should have to qualify to ride motorcycles, or have no driver-license at all, lol! People driving what amounts to 4-ton urban assault vehicles these days, does not help the situation. However, people should never have had Govco interfere in any of this crap to begin with.
If someone can not pass a motorcycle competency road and skills test, they should absolutely not be driving a 4000 lb deadly vehicle. Period.
I ride motorcycles almost everyday and have been for over 40 years. I am only here today because I automatically expect EVERY automobile I see will try to kill me/us. Literally.
In reality, every so many drivers actually do try.
Expecting them to try to kill us has saved me/our lives. Almost an everyday occurrence..
that’s the way I ride too AMC. takes away some of the fun, but better half fun than dead.
Just had a weird one, lady pulled out right in front of me from a left driveway. Luckily I was ready, missed her by 4 or so feet, emergency braking from about 45 to 5ish (which I practice).
Good job on a close call Chris. I almost hit deer because my first ever motorcycle with anti-lock brakes would not let me stop in time. That bike was sold soon after.
I’m not with that idea, but I have no problem with people having to drive a manual transmission in order to operate a vehicle on public roads.
I tried to rice a cycle and it scared the hell out of me. I haven’t done so since 1990. I don’t plan on ever doing that again.
Hi swamprat, My thinking is if folks understand what it is like to travel on two wheels, some may not be so selfish in taking suck deliberate risky maneuvers around motorcycles. Also, the crawl before you can walk theory.. if you can’t learn to ride and safely handle a 200lb 125cc automatic scooter, should you be trusted with a 2 Tom killing machine? Just how I see it. But I am a motorcycle rider at heart.
here come the ”cyberattacks” at CDK Global. a dealership accounting system. GLOBAL…system…supposedly the news is reporting a major cyber attack and the company didn’t notice for 8 hours? yeah…who did they give access to was my first thought on reading this. that is a major company for auto dealerships nationwide. the company gave the access to someone and then cried wolf so to speak.
haven’t the powers that should not be been saying for a long time a ”cyberattack” is coming…they ought to know. they are the ones doing it. them and their partners like Microsoft for instance. Watch how quickly they call for digital id and crypto currency now. injected chips whatever they want….salivating at the possibilities for a problem the corporation and its government partners created. knowingly.
first they break your legs then they sell you the crutches….made in china…guaranteed to be too short…too tall or too weak to hold you. all at the point of a gun.
The safety cult isn’t worried about safe vehicles, they’re worried about the dangerous drivers.
Can’t say I’m not sympathetic either. I see stupid people doing dumb things every day. There are highway-closing accidents at least once a month involving commercial drivers who should know better but drive badly anyway. Last Friday I70 was closed for hours because of a flipped semi just outside of Glenwood Springs. Might have been reacting to another driver’s actions but he’ll get the ticket.
But really, that’s mostly our own negativity bias toward the novel and unique events. Because we’ve evolved in a world of random events that kill us, we keep our heads on a swivel for bad things. And we get ourselves caught up in “remember that time when that thing happened, and all those people died?” thinking. Indeed that’s the basis of all safety regulation. If it happened to one, it could happen to all.
Because people are all identical see, except when we’re individuals.
Personally I find Kai cars a neat idea that I’d never bother with. But if I owned a ranch I’d probably try to import one instead of a Deer John or Polaris 4 wheeler. Slap some bigger rubber and chains on the back wheels and go pretty much anywhere on the property.
I’m 100 percent not in sympathy with anything that the safety cult advocates or has “accomplished” in the last 50 years.
They want to penalize drivers for merely existing. They will use automated enforcement and the nanny safety technology to cajole, prod, and annoy people to death. The world would have been a lot better had the likes of Ralph Nader, Richard Haddon, Joan Claybrook and others never existed.
As long as there are cars, there will be accidents no matter how good people say or think they are at driving. Everyone who has ever driven a car has been in a close call or has been the potential cause of an accidents.
They are accidents, not crashes.
A little off topic but yet ANOTHER fear porn campaign that the establishment hopes people will fall for. The fear porn campaign that the establishment has been running involving climate change is awfully similar to that involving COVID. And now, they wish to do the same thing with BIRD FLU, which they can also use to attack the food supply via MASS killings of chickens and cows to FORCE us to eat bugs and frankenfood made in a lab. The Scarf lady herself, Deborah Birx, was recently calling for mass testing of chickens and cows, likely using the same PCR tests that were NOT to be used as a diagnostic tool but used nonetheless to generate mass fear among the population. If and when government tries to implement MANDATES disguised as “Stopping bird flu” (such as mask & vaxx mandates, testing mandates, or mandates to chip livestock people raise), there needs to be MASS pushback against them.
https://off-guardian.org/2024/06/18/how-and-why-bird-flu-is-about-to-enter-the-mass-testing-phase/
Thanks for highlighting this, Eric. The American apparatchik doesn’t have to make sense –they’re completely unaccountable. This is where I jumped on the Vivek Ramaswamy bandwagon of “people who we elect to run the country should be the only ones running the country”.
Charging performance is abysmal, as expected. According to Honda, it takes approx. four and a half hours to charge this thing with a 6 kW charger (“normal charging”, as Honda calls it), and approx. 30 minutes for 50 kW charging (which Honda incorrectly refers to as “fast charging”).
https://global.honda/en/newsroom/news/2024/4240613eng-n-van-e.html
That’s true, Stufo –
But for $15k, it might be worth the time cost. This little van – if people could buy it – would save them thousands and not just on what they paid for it. Also to insure it. Property taxes, too.
For someone whose daily drive is 50 miles back and forth, this rig would be a cheap way to get around. If you don’t usually drive it much farther than 50 miles in between drives, it’ll have enough charge left for most unexpected drives and you’ll be able to recover those 50 miles lost each day by plugging it in overnight.
It’s not for me – but I think it could be for lots of people.
There’s the thing. It is made for predictable travel. The modern milk float. For most activity that’s fine. But if it is your only vehicle, that’s a problem.
I know a guy who used to rent vehicles for road trips. His Jeep was pretty rough for highway travel over long distances. That’s one option for something like this. But the car rental industry is built on having the customer over a barrel. You get off the plane, they f*** up your reservation, you beg them to give you a vehicle for double the quote. And that’s if you live close to an airport. If not… well, good luck.
Hit send too quickly.
If renting a vehicle wasn’t such a nightmare of poor service, fees and unexpected tourist taxes, maybe that would be an option for owners of EVs. But reality is that is a non-starter and until they figure this out it won’t change. And the issue isn’t a national one, most of the tourist taxes are local.
For local rentals check your local car dealership, this has worked well for us several times. The local morons at Enterprise couldn’t guarantee a minivan or even a large SUV for a family trip to Utah.
Called the local Chevy dealer, got a three row rig for the 10 days for LESS than Enterprise and off we went the next day.
They weren’t concerned about the multi state trip and didn’t ding me for the small dent in the hood when a traffic cone got flipped up on me in Oregon.
‘But for $15k, it might be worth the time cost.’ — eric
Hell, in Commiefornia and Taxachusetts — with a $7.5k fedgov tax credit and a ~$4k stategov tax credit — these little buggers would cost only $3.5k net after tax.
Cheap transport would be accessible to anyone. Which horrifies our usurious overlords. Think of the philanthropic lenders, deprived of their borrowers! This will not do, for an economy built on grift and chiseling.
But for $15k, it might be worth the time cost.
If people are receptive to this kind of argument, and willing to ignore the very real limitations and disadvantages of EVs if there’s a financial incentive to do so, then it really shouldn’t be a problem for the government to force us to drive EVs. They can simply make ICE-powered cars prohibitively expensive, and then we will all see the benefits of opting for the comparatively less expensive EVs. Just look to the EV dystopia of Norway, where they’ve done just that.
So, be careful what you wish for.
Consider the constraint of keeping between a 20% and 80% charge