It’s interesting about the Chevy Volt.
Uniquely, it carries around its own recharger – so it’s not tied to a corded umbilical like other electric cars. So it isn’t gimped by a much-abbreviated radius of action, like all other electric cars – the best of which can travel maybe 150 or so miles before their batteries conk out and the car must hook up to an electric IV for an extended recharging session.
When the Volt’s battery pack’s charge runs down, fresh current is fed into it as you drive – without having to stop driving.
This is superficially similar to the way a hybrid works but also very different.
Unlike hybrids, the Volt is a true electric car. A motor and batteries provide the primary motive power – what makes it go – as opposed to back-up power. There is a small (1.5 liter) gas engine, but it serves almost exclusively as a generator. It comes on as needed to make electricity for the batteries, not torque and horsepower to turn the wheels. In the Volt, electric motors do that.
All the time.
The Volt’s electric motors always propel the car.
In a hybrid, the electric motor and batteries take over when the vehicle isn’t moving – or moving at low speed. Most can only creep along for a couple of miles – and no faster than about 30 MPH – before the gas engine cuts in and takes over to propel the car, just like any other car. Â
The main source of movement in a hybrid car is the gas engine.
A few (the plug-ins, which have more powerful battery packs) can travel for about 10-15 miles and at higher road speeds on battery power alone, but revert to internal combustion for propulsion when the charge depletes. Also, anything less than than eggshell-pressure on the throttle causes the hybrid car’s gas engine to kick on – because the battery pack/motors are too weak to provide adequate acceleration by themselves.
Which makes it difficult to avoid regularly using the gas engine, in other words.
As a result, hybrids use a fair amount of gas. The best of them – the plug-in version of the current (2018) Toyota Prius average in the mid-50s. Most of the others are in the low 40s, high 30s. This is good but not nearly as good as the Volt – which uses so little fuel that owners have to worry about the gas in the tank going stale.
The Chevy can travel 50 miles on electricity only – and without driving it like there’s a Faberge egg under the accelerator pedal. The motors/batteries are designed to be powerful enough to accelerate the car adequately without assistance. And if your trip is less than 50 miles, you can plug the thing in when you get there and burn no gas at all on the return trip.
Owners may go a month or more in between fill-ups. Some go months, plural.
No other hybrid can match this fuel sippyness.
And no electric car can match the Volt’s practicality.
Because it doesn’t have to be plugged in to keep on going. If you need to go farther than 50 miles, just keep on going. The onboard generator will generate electricity and keep the electric motors turning the wheels. With its nine gallon tank topped off, the Volt can travel more than 400 miles before it stops for a refill – and that takes less than 5 minutes – as opposed to a 30-45 minute recharge for the conventional electric car, which cannot recharge itself.
No performance anxiety. No range anxiety. The Volt is economical and practical. At least, vs. any electric car you can buy right now.
Which is probably why it isn’t touted as The Future of Transportation while highly impractical, uneconomic electric cars like the Tesla are embarrassingly slobbered over by the largely mechanically and otherwise illiterate car press and force-fed onto the market via “sales” (really, give-them-away) quotas each manufacturer must genuflect before if they wish to sell any cars at all in states like California (a huge market).
It is very odd . . . if the reason for the electric car push is truly green rather than red.
The Volt’s emissions of objectionable combustion byproducts – unburned hydrocarbons, stuff like that – are slim to nil because its combustion engine is both small and very clean-running but also because it doesn’t run most of the time.
If objective threats to planetary or human health are really the criteria, then the Volt passes with the equivalent of a 1600 SAT score – or within the margin of error, at least.
Certainly, its total emissions are very close to the total emissions produced by any electric car, if one factors in the elsewhere emissions that are generated at the utility plants which produce the electricity for them on an industrial scale (as opposed to using a small-scale onboard generator as the Volt does, which is usually not even running – unlike an industrial-scale utility plant).
The Volt does not require billions in new infrastructure “investment” to make it viable as a car for real people who really need to get places without having to stop every 150 miles or so for a 30-45 minute recharge.
It works, it makes sense.
Aye, but there’s the rub.
The Volt has been shunted aside in favor of electric cars that don’t work or make sense; often both things. There is no reason for this  . . . if the stated reasons are the real reasons.
But what if the real reason is simply to ban internal combustion, no matter how efficient, practical or clean? To use the pretext of “green” in order to erect a red regime? One in which personal cars are all-electric and very expensive and very impractical and so very few persons can actually afford to own one?
Then it all begins to make sense.
Just a different kind of sense.
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By having an full-time electric drive, with the IC engine providing charging power ONLY, there are several benefits:
1) The generator can do double duty as the engine starter motor, saving weight and complexity.
2) Typically an alternator or generator is most efficient at a certain speed. The engine can be ‘tuned’, starting with how the camshaft is ground, to drive the generator at this speed. This enables both optimal efficiency and reduces emissions, as HC output is typically under load for both gas and diesel engines, and NOx is highest upon deceleration. Also, the complicated valve trains typical of today’s engines, like the variable valves in my Ford Focus’ EcoBoost engine, are not needed. Engine timing and spark control would also be greatly simplified.
3) This drive train arrangements lends itself to a diesel rather than gasoline anyway, which is likely what the corrupt bastards running California would freak out over. Diesels are far better for a constant speed, constant torque application like this, and would be even CLEANER, since they run on greater than 100% theoretical air. Since the load is constant, the diesel would never lug and therefore you wouldn’t be able to “roll coal”.
4) It would be possible to have the engine run while the car is parked and left alone (this feature could be disabled, or only allowed at user discretion) to charge the batteries if they’re depleted when the car is turned ‘off’.
Yeah, Doug- that is indeed the best possible arrangement; and the technology for it is not only extant, but fully mature- and has been for some time. So why are they foisting these ridiculous plug-in electric only rechargeable batteries-on-wheels on us? Because having IC-electric (especially diesel-electric) cars would be efficient, economical, and most of all: an enabling of personal autonomy/freedom, and a way of fostering independence from the system. Now we can’t have that, can we?!
Hi Nunzio, I cannot reply directly below your post, so I am replying here. If you are basing your judgment about preppers based upon the TV show or its fanbouy websites; then you are looking in the wrong areas. There is an excellent anarchist prepper website that has audio podcasts as well as Youtube videos along with the typical message boards called The Survival Podcast http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/. A bit of a heads up: I began listening to the podcast shortly after it began. The host was a big L libertarian statist back then, and I was tempted to argue with him about certain points. Unfortunately, I was an OTR truck driver during that time. I always downloaded huge blocks of podcasts to be listened to as I drove truck. This means that I was always at least a month behind in listening to his podcasts. I never sent any replies because I suspected that someone else would beat me to it. He finally got converted to anarchism by someone else, but at first he was posting objections to things that he thought we anarchists had never considered before. He STILL comes across as oftentimes being arrogant if you are merely listening to his voice on podcasts. Watch some of his Youtube videos, and you will see that he really isn’t _always_ being arrogant. This is a great site for the real homesteaders/preppers!
Hi Ya Brian,
Awww, naw….I don’t watch TV. What I’ve seen of “trhe prepper community” is mainly from online articles I get suckered into clicking on- like ones often linked on Lewrockwell.com, etc. Not even so much the articles, but the commentors.
I do realize that there are different “levels”- as in everything else. i.e. ya have the people living in the big metro area, who think they’re gonna pack a truckload of crap into Jeep Cherokee and drive 500 miles and set up shop on some piece of land they own and live happily ever after….
And then there are more realistic ones….
It’s gotten to the point where I often just click on those articles for entertainment value. Most of the kind of preppers I criticize I refer to as “armchair preppers”- They’re living a fantasy.
My biggest criticism though, is why so many of those armchair preppers want to live in these crumbling dysfunctional tyrannical metro areas until the last possible moment.
BTW: Thanks for starting a new outcropping here, so that I don’t have to perpetuate the 2-character wide column.
The Chevy Volt is a Six-speed manual away from perfection.
Wouldn’t THAT be cool! No wonder the Millenials ain’t interested in cars….who the hell can get excited about automatics?
I believe when it comes to government-speak or political-speak, the real reason is NEVER the stated reason. Especially because politicians can inflict the Law upon everyone else, with the facts never getting in the way of their motives. This is how we get to the point where people will say that the ends justify the means.
But I digress. The idea that there is an electric car that works as intended is a great idea. Because of the work I do, I have at least one 300-mile travel day a week. With the time frame involved, having to recharge in the middle of the day would not be a workable solution. And my CNG-powered truck gets a cleaner bill of health from the EPA than any coal-burning electric plant ever will.
The idea of having the power pack in the vehicle is better than always having to rely upon a utility to deliver extra fuel during my day. And this generation of the Volt may deliver.
Hi Travis,
Yup. Amen.
And leaving aside the functional objections, a $6,000 used anything is vastly more sensible from an economic point-of-view.
I have an ’02 Nissan pick-up. It averages about 23 MPG. But it’s been paid for since I bought it about seven years ago so – effectively – the only cost it imposes is the cost of feeding it and maintaining it. A tankful is about $30. Once a week, equals appx. $120/month equals appx. $,1500 annually. For the sake of discussion, let’s add property taxes (about $100 annually) insurance (about $300 annually) and call it $500 a year to cover maintenance (which I perform myself).
So, around $2,500 a year to own/drive the truck. Works out to about $200/month.
Show me an EV that can match this.
Leases don’t count. That’s a rental and I own my truck. Which means I have equity in the truck. At any time, if I needed to, I could convert it into about $6,000 in cash.
Can’t do that wif a lease!
eric, not arguing but doesn’t it strike you (ouch!) as strange that a baby pickup only gets 23 mpg? My 84.5 Nissan 4WD with larger wheels and tires got 16. I bought it because of fuel mileage and its small size I thought I could get into places I couldn’t with a big pickup. Well, my ’77 Silverado got 15 mpg and was way the hell more comfortable and powerful than the Nissan. I could pull the boat at 100 mph while the Nissan could only reach 100 mph if I pulled it with the Silverado.
Add to that, the insult of a computer controlled carb that eventually went agly and NO LSD….. plus the tiny bed.
Then there was the time I tried to do the ultra-steep/slippery mesa climb and thought I’d have to get my friends Blazer to get it up to the top. He’s got a plethora of people aboard and drives around me in case I have to have his help. And then my other friend’s short wheelbase 1/2 T 4WD Chevy that would climb trees if you needed to and pull a bigass trailer doing it.
Well, I didn’t make that mistake again and when my buddy was trying to pull a 10,000 lb trailer out of the mud with his ’03 Chevy Ext cab half ton 4WD I came to the rescue and pulled truck and trailer out of a big hole with my diesel 4WD Chevy one ton(single rear wheel). It’s that transfer case with low gears and the transmission with under-drive. Of course I didn’t use under-drive in low range. I just laid into it and the Toyo’s just dug him a trail out. My Z 71 is a real weenie when it comes to what that big truck would do…..in the boggy mud or anywhere else. And the old 82 with the 454 pulled overloaded big rigs out of the sand. No, not on the first try but every time you hit the end of that 7/16″ chain and dig 4 holes you get a bit further till the big rig is out of its hole.
That pickup pulled a water well drillers test rig all day long into and out of places he coujldn’t believe. He asked me what the hell was that pickup. Next time I saw him he had one like it, was even red and he couldn’t say enough good things about it. Live and learn boys, live and learn.
Hi Eight,
Yup!
I’ve found that 1500s with V8s return about the same – or maybe slightly worse – mileage. The four in my truck is a bit too small for the truck, basically. The V8, on the other hand, doesn’t have to work very hard to move the 1500.
I could have gotten the V6 in mine, but then I’d have to deal with Nissan’s V6 in that now-tight engine bay. Nein!
The four may be a tad under-powered but you can easily get at anything and this engine is simple, extremely durable and virtually maintenance-free…. unlike the optional V6…
Heh….for some reason, the Japs don’t seem to be able to make a good 6 cyl. gas engine. Maybe they should stick to I-6’s….they don’t do V’s good. (Nissan made a 6cyl. diesel back in the 80’s that was a beast…but it was rare- even then). Actually, nobody seems to be able to make really good V-6’s. Maybe only 4 main bearings for 6 cylinders has something to do with it- while the good I-6’s have 7 mains… and the I-4’s have 5.)
But that’s what kills me about most of these modern vehicles: They brag about having small engines…but those small injuns have to work at their upper limits, so they get crappy mileage in the heavy vehicles they have to drag around.
My Excursion weighs >500 lbs more than my F250, and is also geared even lower…yet gets better mileage than the F250, because the Ex. has the 6.8 V-10, which never has to break a sweat, while the 250 has the 5.4 which has to work. Imagine if the Ex was geared the same or even higher than the F250.
I remember helping install a septic system about 2-3 years ago, I got to looking at the thing critically, the only indigenous materials we used was the excavated dirt for backfill, no gravel at all, almost all of it came from the petrochemical industry, styrofoam peanuts in mesh bags around the plastic drain pipes the only thing the system used that wasn’t oil based was the moss in the digester tank( it came from Canada), no concrete tanks only plastic.Oil is used in everything.The power to install it came from diesel fuel, we are so attached to petroleum if we happen to get to the point where it is actually harder to obtain, it’s going to cost us dearly.
Plastics are killing the life in the oceans, in my opinion, if we can get away from that one thing mentioned in the “Graduate ” petroleum wouldn’t have such a bad name . Have heard a rumor that Caterpillar is started to get a backlog of returned and new equipment due to the slowdown in the coal industry, don’t know if its true or not, looks like they could send some the smaller stuff over to Hurricane ravaged areas and be put to good use .
Cat has been on the skids for a few years now. Not only from slowdowns but from cheaper competition.
Cat sells longevity….and while it is true a Cat will run a lot more hours than other equipment you have to factor in their higher outlay price.
This last round in the patch most of the new dozers and other dirt working equipment were other brands that costs a lot less. The companies that knew they’d be through with their stuff in months or a couple years bought much less expensive equipment.
The oceans are fine. Millions of people could wake up tomorrow and clean all the beaches in no time at all. Don’t believe the myths of Chimerica. The Chinese American notion that there is only things you can buy to solve every dilemma. That the buyers must passively await until the moment the sellers offer the answers for purchase.
You alone are more powerful than any unit of collective action. The individual is the greatest power in the world. So many people are in the thrall of consumerism, but that doesn’t matter as long as you don’t despair and surrender your individual problem solving mind.
Look here at Versova Beach in Mumbai India.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEnaEqan7FI
4000 ktons were removed all because of a single man. A filthy lawyer no less. What he did any of us can do. Don’t be fooled into thinking a single man can’t solve any problem, no matter how large.
Here’s the full story of Afroz Shah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrXjJdJXPbo
Isn’t that the modern world’s answer to everything, Tor?
You have to buy stuff to:
Make you happy.
Raise your kids.
Be healthy.
Attract woman.
Have a boner.
Save the environment.
etc. etc.
Two things we really do need:
Some lnad (You can produce just about anything you need if you have some land)
Freedom: So you can live in a way that suits you, and use the resources of your land.
Deprive people of those two essentials, and then everything else must either be acquired or provided.
Norway has a trillion dollar positive stock fund for 5 million residents, unlike America with its 20-200 trillion in negative debts for 325 million residents. China and Abu Dhabi have similar funds, with similar balances also.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/09/22/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-hits-1-trillion-infographic/#6848dd5083c9
Other than North Korea, I think the US may be in the most dystopian situation in the world.
If enough of us lived near each other and had some land. I’d think we’d all be better off as a private investment club.
Buy a couple of thousand of gallons of fuel for our vehicles and homes in bulk once a year when the prices are lowest and store them in tanks. Repair our own stuff as it breaks, and take in all the neighbors stuff too to make a few dollars we could convert to detergents, coffee, medicines, intoxicants, milk, eggs, bread, animals for slaughter, and all other kinds of commodities.
Also have a large stock of machines, tools, furniture, linens, clothes, kitchenware, we could be our own thrift store and commissary. All they have is power, we can beat them with frugality and friendly virtue.
Everyone could look at their receipts, bank accounts, credit cards, and see what we all buy most often, and then come up with an ingroup alternative to buying from the Globalist Company Town.
Tony and the Beetles. PKD. The Beetles with their grasping and slashing claws are aliens to us, not our brothers.
https://archive.org/details/theeyes_haveit_pc_librivox/theeyeshaveit_2_dick.mp3
https://archive.org/details/theeyes_haveit_pc_librivox/theeyeshaveit_3_dick.mp3
Somebody call a doctor
https://kek.gg/i/3gGMzx.jpg
Tucker Carlson on the Baizuo ‘White Left’ (ä¸æ–‡å—幕)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4R8o56ilQs
American science is lousy with what the Chinese call baizous.
Oh lookee. The dingbat broad in charge of the American Physical Society has written a letter about the importance of DACA in physics.
Truly American scientists have gone full degenerate Soviet.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKUDyuTW4AIPYNG.jpg
The letter is on the web as a PDF. One that won’t let you copy and paste it. Here it is.
https://www.aps.org/about/governance/letters/upload/letter-greene-sept717.pdf
Every American science organization is about doing state science. Begging for a bigger slice of stolen pie from the overtaxed working stiffs. About taking all those tax dollars and throwing them at savages who hate us and want to kill us.
All of their sites must have the same vendors. Pushing multiculturalism. Unlimited immigration, the lower average IQ the better. LGBTQ fraus in charge of everything.
Lots of pictures of blacks and women doing science. I mean just look at the history of physics. If it wasn’t for all those brave African women working tirelessly in their labs, I don’t know where we’d all be today. They elevated their science and overcame the oppressive white male patriarchy against incredible odds.
APS reacts to withdrawal from the Paris Climate Fatwas.
https://www.aps.org/about/paris.cfm
Sure they got knee-grows doing science. Where do you think the white scientists get all that crack they’re smoking when they formulate their thesiseses?
Knee grows are in right now. Triads-Crips Globalist Thug Culture. The most watched show in China is a reality series called China Rap Star. Check these Chi-grows out.
Jackson Wang – Rap of China performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1N-sBKQhts
Is the world ready for Chinese Hip Hop – BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-41236528/is-the-world-ready-for-chinese-hip-hop
Uh-UH! No-can-do! I ain’t clicking on that, Tor-sky! I gace up TV decades ago, so that my eyes and ears would be poluted by stuff like that!
Damn! Is there a culture on earth that is not being polluted by the Jews? (Who are the ones who invented and promoted all of this crud!)
I wonder if there are Chinese Jews?
Like the Chinese waiter said:
“We have orange Jews, tomato Jews, but no Chinese Jews”. 😉
The Chinese believe Jews are clever and accomplished
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/167289/nanjing-jewish-studies
They believe the wealth of the world is in American’s pockets, and American’s are controlled by Jews.
‘
Wonder where they got that idea?
Lol.
This one’s for Turd. Hope he’s finished the mend.
Turd Fling Monkey – Top 10 Things Only Red-Pill Men Understand About Women
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j3wdkjEjd4
Chinks* are smart. We used to be smart. Ben Franklin had a few things to say about Jews (Maybe he was Chinese!).
[*=I don’t say “Asians”. I never saw a Pakistani playing chess without a chess set on the subway…but I did see a couple of chinks doing that…]
Well, now ya’s got me thinking of one of my favorite songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhUkGIsKvn0
Ni Nunzio,
Americans have become like the Pakleds in Star Trek; check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeFoGo3N_4g
Funny thing it seems to be mostly the fair-skinned people of high intelligence( mostly of German descent) that are disappearing without a trace (makes one wonder) one Guy espoused His theory to Me about the producers in Hollywood and what they are promoting, seems Blue eyes are out and Brown eves are the coming thing with eventual extinction of the fair skinned peoples(does make one wonder).
Take a deep breath and dive deeply, you will be surprised what you can find on the bottom.
Heard all about Cargill and Texas Eight , its a shame that one company can dominate so many lives and our munificent gov’t doesn’t give a hoot in Hades about it.Seen something interesting about Norway or one the Nordic countries they have put aside around 188K for each and every citizen,( wow and us in the US can’t even afford a doctor visit)
I would say abandon all those Euros and do a surprise merge with Greater China/Korea/Japan.
That’s 1670 million people including their worldwide diaspora.
We’ve got more in common with those guys than anyone else.
Who cares about eye color, slanty or round eyes, hair and skin color.
It’s about being men that make things and provide services with individual dignity.
The systems can all be abandoned, and we become something both high tech, and low real visceral animal all at once and just live our lives for ourselves and our families.
Look again Tor,being 1.6 billion is no buttress and sorry to say the coastal fisheries are just about depleted(even the once common place Lobster is rara avis in New England.
Yeah, that’s probably why Bevin isn’t here much.
Probably face down in his rice bowl crying his eyes out about all those poor asian carp he used to enjoy swimming with as a kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iBL-I4xdk
Must have hit peak carp a while back, and before you know it, the last fish will be dead.
I was really into fishing when I was a teen. Living in NYC and not having a boat, I could still catch anything I wanted from a bridge; a bulkhead; or a jetty.
Fast forward to the 90’s- after not having fished for years. I go fishing a friend’s boat…..and was utterly stunned at how little we caught! On a boat, in which we could go wherever we wanted; in the once-fertile bays of Long Island- not the polluted dead waters of NYC I had fished in as a kid- and there was NOTHING out there- and my friend confirmed that that is indeed the way it had been for a while now…..
Never mind that those bays were once wall-to-wall with clam boats (of which I used to have one)…and now…..if you saw ONE it was something to point at and say “Look! A clammer!”, and take a picture….
You KNOW they must be pushing white genocide in the media, when even in the South, half the white girls ya see are shacking up with and having babies by niggers. (And i do mean niggers, not black people!).
It’s hilarious, really. It’s almost as if they were following some script. They meet some jig; insist that he’s some wonderful prince who treats them like a queen; get knocked-up by him; a few months later, he’s cheating; beating her; in jail; all her money is gone; she’s high and dry with some mulatto bastard kid in a section 8 apartment on the dole for the rest of her fat life. Oh, and next time, maybe she’ll try a Mexican or a Paki, or even another nigger….what the hell- ya need more babies to get more benefits and to ensure that they don’t send you to work. Between that, and getting pain pills from the Medicaid doctor that you sell for a veritable fortune, for your “Fibromyalgia” or “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”….
The Western world is conmiting SUICIDE!
Like I always say.
Once you go black you’re a single mother.
“Once you go black, we don’t want you back!”.
OYGB? Sweat pants and fried chicken 4eva.
makes me some legs Becky
https://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Once_3efbc4_161494.jpg
One issue with the push for EVs that most people don’t consider is the portion of fuel taxes that’s used to pay for road/highway construction and maintenance. As the sale of gasoline declines there will be a corresponding reduction in fuel taxes collected. At some point the shortfall will have to be made up either by increasing the tax on gasoline sales or by taxing the electricity that replaces the gasoline no longer being sold. Eventually to be equitable there will need to be a dual electricity metered rate – one for domestic use, and one for transportation use. That’s going to be a nightmare to manage.
I think they’ve already anticipated that, Steve- hence the implementation of all these “smart meters”.
I live in a place that has some of the lowest electric rates in the country (Which sure is nice, having some here from a pklace which had among the highest in the country!)- Just got my bill day before yesterday, and it was $60- and that’s a for a 1100 sq. ft. trailer- all electric, and running the A/C a lot; pool filter occasionally; electric hot water heater; I cook all of my own meals, etc.
By comparison, they implemented some kind of peak-demand pricing crazy price structure in the town 17 miles away where my sister lives- so that her bill for the same time period, in a one-bedroom apartment, was over $200.
Imagine when electric cars become common, and electric usage becomes high even in the middle of the night, due to everyone charging their cars overnight?!
What’s going on in the town where my sister lives is a portent of things to come, everywhere. And since electricity is essentially being “nationalized”, and is/will be a monopoly, there will be no alternatives/no competition. The reaming will be relentless, just because they can.
All of my life, I’ve been hearing nothing but “conserve! Conserve! Conserve electricity!”- and yet, over the decades they have relentlessly pushed things which require the use of more and more electricity- from buildings which require the use of HVAC 24/7 365 days a year, because you can’t open the windurs; to everything being controlled by computers- from children’s toys to “typrewriters”, to electric cars now.
Hi Steve,
Yes, indeed.
It is striking that so few can think this far down the road, which isn’t all that far down the road. Instead, they are gulled by – or choose to believe – economic and other nonsense, for reasons that elude me.
Member when “chemists” weren’t pathetic socialist cunts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUq9owBYelw
These 3 should bend over and see how many inches of agenda 21 they can shove up their smug idiotic asses. What a joke.
Wow! I sure must of touched a raw nerve with all the climate change deniers here. Where does one begin? One thing I can say is that years ago, like many of you, I used to think it was all bunk. Eventually I realized that I was the one full of bunk. There’s a reason why Pride is one the seven deadly sins according to the bible. Pride goeth before the destruction. As for the guy who said water vapor is a greenhouse gas and is far more abundant than CO2 , here you go: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html
Hi Steve,
The use of the term, “climate deniers” is another example of the demagogic language being deployed over this business. It is an attempt to shame/smear/impugn legitimate questioning of a hypothesis that is far from established as a theory much less a fact by equating such with people who “deny” that the German Nazis pogrommed the Jews during WW II. This is an outrageous (and in my opinion, a telling) tactic.
There are, essentially, four things at issue:
First, are average temperatures rising?
Two, is this unnatural?
Three, is it the result of, primarily or entirely or partly, of human activity?
Four, if it is warming unnaturally, to what degree? How much warming will there be? Will this warming be on the whole damaging or beneficial?
The fact is, the answers to these questions are not known. There are assertions being made, some more plausible than others – and various “models” touted – but the idea that the earth is warming catastrophically and unnaturally as the result of human activity is by no means established fact.
It ought to bother you – it ought to bother any reasonable person – that demagogic language is being resorted to. “Climate change” and “climate denier.” It is of a piece with “Patriot Act.”
Who could possibly question such things?
Remember: Government is pushing this agenda. Do you believe the government? Do you trust people like Hillary and Barack and all the rest of them? Do you see them reducing their C02 “emissions”? Why does Barack need a 10,000 square foot home? If this “climate change” thing is an actual and imminent threat to us all, then why is the obscenely huge and obviously not necessary military not in any way restricted from spewing as much C02 as it likes? What is the annual C02 output of all military aircraft, ground vehicles, physical facilities and so on?
Shouldn’t that be “reduced,” if “climate change” is a real danger?
Note also the extreme dishonesty used by the “climate change” people, including having people without any expertise in the relevant disciplines – example, Bill Nye the “science guy” – constantly touting “climate change” on TV and so forth. The indisputable manipulation of data to buttress “climate change.”
Scientists do not do such thing.
But political scientists do.
But how else would we keep all the children safe?
Resistance is Futile!!!!!!!!!
Hi Quee,
Some drink whiskey, some smoke weed… I raise the Jolly Roger and fire up my Trans-Am or triple two stroke!
Let me borrow your TA and Kaw. I think I can multi-task all of it.
Hi Eight,
I let friends ride/drive my stuff; c’mon down someday!
Thanks eric. I’d love to come visit one day.
Just got notice this afternoon it’s gonna be on again for the patch Tuesday. Wish it were patch with a big P but I’m grateful for the half pay no perks patch as it is.
But everybody keep buying fuel like crazy and it’ll come back and be bumper to bumper big rigs and all sorts of rigs.
You always have to wonder how long it will last since this last time there was a plethora of new, long term stuff never before seen. I saw truck after truck doing stuff I can’t even name and more equipment installed than I could imagine. Huge pipelines connecting all those new, shiny pump jacks and offloading stations and literally one after the other 1.5 M bbl. or larger freshwater ponds.
Well, be careful and keep the shiny side up…..and thanks again.
Morning, Eight!
You bet. I wish I had more time to ride/drive my stuff but lately – post divorce – it mostly just sits. Because I mostly just work. I have little time for much else these days. When I was married, I had some help – with the house/animals – and also with the rent. Now it’s all on me to keep food in the fridge for me and in the cabinet for the cats.
I have looked around a bit to see whether there might be a woman out there worth trying with, but the pickings are very slim and I think I am done with that game.
I’d probably take the ex back.
eric, young and dumb and working our butts off we probably had no idea it would only get worse.
But in defense of my lack of foresight I worked through one of the brightest periods this country has ever seen.
Could I have ever seen the wages I made in ’74 would be the best it would ever be? Evidently, that never occurred to me.
Oh, I made more money later on but 2 jobs were often the result of that.
Back in the late 90’s there was a year or some over that I worked 24 hrs a day.
The wife and I were speaking to a lawyer(never a GOOD thing)and I made that statement about working 24 a day. He said You can’t work 24 hrs a day, you gotta sleep sometime.
The wife said No, he didn’t work 24 hrs. Every morning when he came in from changing water all night he’d sit down in the recliner after a shower and clean clothes and nod off for 15 or 20 minutes.
I’m glad that’s over but wish I were capable of doing it now. Like a lot of people we’re still trying to dig out an air hole to get a deep breath.
We knew it was a lost cause before we admitted it but when Cargill shut down their packing plant in Dalhart there was no doubt about it. When the big ships sink it’s difficult not to get caught in the suction.
I know what you mean about having it all on yourself. Even though the wife was here she had a shattered ankle and a bad knee on the other side. She had no good days. I could have had women throwing themselves at me and not know it. And here we thought we’d reach that age of retirement….ahaha. I reached it, retired and kept on trucking.
Someone asked me when I was gonna quit a couple years ago. I looked into my crystal ball and said “When one of those steering tires blows and I can’t keep it out of that deep ravine”. That’s a best scenario for me. I’ve had too many friends go down with cancer so that ravine looks better every day. Take care now and maybe some day you’ll find a good woman when you weren’t even thinking about such. Life is full of surprises. I know it’s a tired old way of closing but……peace.
I used to think:”Man, if I had a woman around to cook and clean and take care of the animules and keep the home fires burning, it’d free me up to be able to do so much more; make a lot more money, etc.”
Then I came to realize: Even if a woman existed who still did all of those things; who met my standards of attractiveness; was philosophically in-tune with me; and wasn’t a dingbat, but was somebody ya could rely on to not F everything up…..what would be the point of doing more work and making more money?
Yeah….I’d have to do those things just to keep up the woman! She’d get to enjoy the environment I created here, while I’d see less of it; and if she were truly someone with whom I’d want to spend more time (LOL)I’d now be pressed for such time- so what would be the point?
I think of that when I’m doing dreaded housework. Suddenly, the few hours a week of housework doesn’t seem so bad. And the peace and solitude I have when it’s done, I savor even more. -No nagging or arguing or worrying; no wondering what she’s gonna turn into in a few years.
And that’s the BEST case scenario- imagining that good women still existed. In reality, considering what’s out there in the real world, a 7 year-old’s dream about being a pro baseball player who’s a rock star in his spare time, is more likely to come true!
Eric, 5 or 10 years from now, you’ll see your ex, and look at the life she is leading; the person she has become; and what she looks like, and you’ll say “Thank Gawd I didn’t have to stick around while THAT was going on!”.
I’ve seen it so many times- especially with older couples. One goes their own way (It’s never both; and it’s virtually always the woman! They become convinced that their unhappiness is our fault; and or that they can have a more satisfying life by abandoning their commitments and pursuing “an independent life”. They were never fully on-board with us; they think there’s more to life, so they jetison you and set out to find what they think they’re missing…only to end up more miserable and living in some little apartment) and it’s just as sad if they don’t get divorced, because they both just go through the motions, but no one’s happy. The man does his duty, and is miserable, because he no longer gets anything out of it; The woman does her thing, and thinks the man is responsible for her being miserable or unfulfilled.
It’s our modern perverted culture. We still go through the motions of marriage- but now there are a bunch of “outs” and it’s done on people’s own terms and conditions. People don’t play for keeps anymore; people don’t honor their vows; those of us who do, lose, because we are playing by a superior set of rules by which the others are no longer bound.
You can just tell institutional American Science is totally not about social engineering. I’m sure Steve is a true man of science and not some kind of welfare hack with a lifetime government funded position.
Just check out the president of ACS. Allison Campbell. So good of Steve to offer this unbiased source of scientific truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FK1VDYIvFc
I’m sure Allison’s discovered all kinds of new things and isn’t engaged in any virtue signalling whatsoever.
It’s funny that its the “climate” alarmists, not the deniers that have convinced me that its total bull.
Hi Rich,
Same.
My radar squawks immediately whenever I hear demagogic terms such as “climate change”… it tells me there is bullshit underneath it all…
Hehe, yeah, Eric- and all one has to do, is to look at all of the other things every one of these fruit-cake AlGorians believe in, to realize not only how totally off the mark they are on just about everything, but that their motives are agenda-driven, rather than T’other way around.
Betcha there’s not a ONE of ’em whose a politically-incorrect Libertarian…or even a 2nd-amendment supporting Conservative!
Nun, I look back on my life and now know for a fact everything govt. said was a lie. Doesn’t matter the subject.
From Social Security to the civil war the War of 1812 and the war on farmers making whisky, all a lie.
We watched an old Star Trek yesterday, one of those written by Shatner and badly directed with bad dialogue. He and Spock were charged with a couple dozen crimes and at the end, in a court, they’re all absolved of every wrongdoing except Kirk not obeying an order.
Oh happy days, everybody was so happy and mulled around and clapped each other on the back except for a bunch of Romulans and such.
As Spock and Kirk are getting accolades I said “And here comes Jack Ruby who’ll shoot Kirk in the gut. They’ll load him up in an ambulance and drive him around Loop 812 a few times before they get oriented and he’ll have bled out by then. We both kinda snickered. Whatever it’s said to be is exactly NOT what it is. FUFEFH’s.
The amazing thing is, 8, that the gov’t’s lies are SO blatant, and yet so many people seem oblivious. Even if they’ve been out-right lied to and fooled before…they’ll fall for the exact same lies the next time.
The fact that everything they say is a lie, is one of those watershed things, which, if people would see and admit that one thing, everything else would fall into place.
But statism is a religion, and gov’t is their god. They’ll literally stop their ears rather than hear anything that might destroy their god, because they know their false god can not withstand the light of truth.
Kinda like trying to reference the Bible to a Catholic- they don’t want to hear it; it’s a forbidden book, because it exposes the corruption of their false system.
How about: The government which fostered slavery, killing a few hunnert thousand of it’s own people “to end slavery”?! And what’s our excuse for invading half of the countries we wage war against? “They’re killing their own people”- LOL- we’re the only nation in history which destroys other countries “to help them”…..and no one sees any problem with this. They line up to sign their lives away so that they can kill people who’ve done them no harm, and have little ribbons on their cars to show their support for our mercenaries.
One World Statism is the largest religion in the world.
Some NGO or other claims to be in charge of tires, and nations like the US don’t argue otherwise. They get to liking it and demanding it.
This article and comments has really opened my eyes. I had no idea how compliant everyone is with all these procedures.
Maybe I’m in the wrong place, this is just a place to whimper a bit about the good ol’ days and then go stand in line to get a barcode tattoo and digital chip placed under your skin so you can get new tires on your car.
We’ve got enough people here, we could start relying on each other instead of using Uncles systems.
How much worse is it going to have to get before we stop buying things and paying for services from people who absolutely fucking hate us and want us chained to them like Leia the slave girl?
How can we all go on shopping at JabbaHut?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMUvVvMLVBU
Hi Tor,
This may sound silly or be naive… however. I think it is very important to have venues such as this to let others know they are not the only “kooks” out there who believe in liberty and not-busybody-ism. One of the greatest advantages they – Clovers – have is the saturation of culture such that it seems, at least at fist glance, that things are utterly hopeless. That everyone is a Clover.
But, this is not true.
In my lifetime, I have seen – as just one pertinent example – Libertarianism evolve from a philosophy almost no one outside of a few sinecures had even heard of to a fairly mainstream thing.
Give it time.
I don’t see the tyre tyranny as that complex I guess.
There are two kinds of retail. Guys and gals that will bust their ass to make a profit off you. Treat you like a king. Flirt and joke and humble themselves even.
And the Soviet ration line kind of retail.
Where you show your ID.
Obey all signs.
Get scanned and prodded. Get barked at and commanded. Endure interrogations and surveillances a total Stasi nightmare.
I understand sometimes you get caught off guard, or don’t have time to care. Rare exceptions.
But I’m not hearing that.
I’m hearing rationalizationsof men who embrace their economic cuckolding.
It’s like the Playboy cartoon I saw as a kid where the waiter tells the customer “I took the liberty of adding $80 to your check so while you’re stunned with disbelief, I can bang your wife.”
This place is amazing. And we’re better than most. But not so much better than I’d been telling myself, if the Tyre Tyranny article is any indication.
The cash register is the point of the statist sword, don’t just meekly hand over your money if a clover is in charge. Stand up and ever more boldly fight the bastards.
In support of what ya say about the masses, Tor:
It’s like when you go to a store like Lowe’s.
Even if you’re paying cash, as i always do- at the register, they always ask for your phone number. I never give it. But I am AMAZED at how EVERYONE just non-chalantly provides any info the casheir requests of them. Phone number…driver’s license; socialist security number….I seem to be the only person for miles around who doesn’t comply.
2 or 3 times a year, I’ll buy a pack of cigarettes- I like a smoke on rare occasions. Last time, they asked to see my driver’s license! I told the cahsier: “I’m 55 years old; if ‘store policy’ is so unwilling to trust your judgment, that they think you’d mistake me for an 17 year-old, then I don’t want the cigarettes!”- and I didn’t buy them (and haven’t bought any since!). Ditto the last time I tried to buy a larger (cow size) syringe at Tractor Supply, to use for dispensing dye to find a leak.
If enough people would just stop complying…. It’s not as if there’s even a penalty….just do without a few items! But no….that’s the price people today are willing to sell-out their freedom for- a can of spray paint, or just not to object to a request by the cashier at Lowe’s…..
It’s a war of attrition. We lose just because so few give a damn.
Tor, That’s like the problem I have with “preppers”. You see them all storing up water filters and Swiss Army knives and duct tape for when “TSHTF”, as they go right on happily living in these oppressive cities and suburbs, with the idea that they will flea at the very last minute if there is some catastrophe- but meanwhile, the REAL catastrophe is unfolding daily before our eyes, but like the proverbial frog, they’re staying in the pot of boiling water as lonmg as they can- not realizing that they are in-fact being cooked.
Yep, SOME friends are making bugout bags while others are just accumulating ammo having already hardened their place.
The floor will probably break under my bed but at least I’ll know what rabbit hole has the ammo.
50′ to pasture on one side, 200′ on another, 1/2 M open ground another and 500 yds to the last open ground. That means the .243 for one side, the .06 for another and my babies with big mags of 5.56 for the other two.
Those purple fence posts are there for a reason. I’ve thought about making targets to show people coming how they look at specific ranges.
This is YOU at this spot. Another 100 yds closer And This is YOU at right here.
I finally found my dream scope that’s a night and day with infra-red for night and none for day. It’s computer compensated to show when you’re off and what the range is. ATN 5X20. I may be old but you don’t want to get into a shoot out with me.
“This is your brain.
This is your brain on slugs….”
I thought about doing the target thing, too- but i would be able to resist the temptation to paint mine up to look like cops. There’s probably some law or against it…or they’d make one.
I have bad eyes. I’ll shoot a lot of shots from big guns, and make sure I take out everything.
” I had no idea how compliant everyone is”
See, Tor; it’s like this: most of us here will be compliant as hell right up to the point where we snap and beat the fuck out of everybody involved.
It’s just how we are.
Eric, ya missed the fifth and most important one, the crux of the whole matter. To wit: Can we do anything about it?
With human populations at the level they are, any of the proposed solutions of the Gaia worshippers amount to sacrificing hundreds of millions of innocent individuals to their beliefs. Not hyperbole- our current level of energy usage is necessary to feed us all and keep us from freezing in the dark. The rest is true, but not really vital. Of course humans affect their environment, we are a part of nature and it’s what we do.
So Steve, boobala, if all of this AlGorian nonsense is true, why is it that those who are the architects of the scheme, only want to apply the supposed “fix” to the US and Europe, while exempting China, India and Africa? Does their pollution somehow not create the same supposed detrimental effects as ours? And how come we can continue to “ruin the planet”, as long as we pay a monetary penalty for doing so (Which will go to those exempt regions, to help them build more infrastructure, which will create more pollution; which will result in more supposed warming)?
Is it like sacrificing a virgin in the volcano? Are the gods of environmentalism able to be bribed? Just as long as we pay; and just as long as only certain countries reduce “greenhouse gases”, while others increase theirs, the gods of Global Warming, who just coincidentally seem to hold the same views as do rabid Berkeley SJWs, will be pacified, and not wreak their vengeance upon us by making the world more hospitable?
What bothers me about the “climate change/global warming/HUMANS ARE BAD FOR SOME REASON!!!!!!!” Chicken Littlists, is that if, and I say if, they are right and the world is literally about to burst into flames should Eric Peters dare think about driving his car today, wouldn’t they be advocating for the death of 90-95% of the human race to “save us”? I think the answer is multi-faceted:
1) While many of the “elites” want us murdered, they need us to actually make a vaguely capitalist society function and keep them high on the hog.
2) Openly advocating for mass-murder is an easy way to lose an argument (and one’s life potentially). A holocaust as a solution to a “science” that is not reproducible is a non-starter at best and,
3) They, as you surmised, do not actually believe the lies they’ve been spewing like CO2.
There are a vocal minority of “environmentalists” who would like a massive culling of the human race. However, it’s hilarious that they think they will be among the survivors as the machinery for said culling, no doubt a worldwide government, gets spooled up.
The whole CO2 driven climate change thing is ancient religion and power structure in a new package plus technocracy. Add eugenics too. Once that is realized everything makes sense.
Thousands of years have passed but nothing is actually different here on this rock.
I do wonder about the so-called elite’s end game. So much of modern technology requires economies of scale. The cost would be too high for even Bill Gates at low volume for so many things.
80 years ago the elites wanted a world brain.
“We do not want dictators, we do not want oligarchic parties or class rule, we want a widespread world intelligence conscious of itself. To work out a way to that world brain organization is therefore our primary need in this age of imperative construction. ”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/World_Brain
The elites need a LOT of slaves. Look how they’re flooding all of the socialist nations (including the USA) with the lowest quality specimens who like to make lots of babies (and how they subsidize the lowest of their own slave-class citizens to have babies), because the birthrate among the prosperous long-time citizens has fallen off greatly.
It seems that the thing the real rulers fear most, is dwindling population. Just look cat how, no matter what the people want, and no matter who is elected here in ‘Merca, and most of Europe, the legal and illegal immigrants just keep on coming, unhindered- and no one will do a thing about it, because the people they REALLY represent- the real rulers; the elite; want it that way.
They bodies for their wars; they need people to clean the toilets and grow the food and work in the factories; and people with whom to play god over.
Imagine the USA with a 95% population reduction- i.e. only having 15 million people in the whole country! I’d sure enjoy it; but really, the elite would have to scrounge for themselves, because with that few people, it wouldn’t even be enough to build jets; run and maintain airports; build and repair roads and buildings; staff hospitals; staff stores, etc. and of that 15 million, 2/3rds of ’em would be involved in just providing the things that the 15 million need to survive.
The elite would lose virtually all of their revenue, and all of their privilege. They’d have to start earning their own keep and providing for themselves, like a normal person[horror of horrors!].
This is why the “depopulation agenda” is BS. This phony environmentalism is all about control and establishing socialism, and redistributing wealth- and if any doubts that, just look at the Paris Treaty- where the US and Europe are hindered from practicisng business and industry, and forced to give money to places like China and India, which are still allowed to practice business and industry on the same scale the US used to years ago.
So if it were really about “warming”, why would some countries be allowed to continue to do things which “promote warming”, while other countries are not, and must even pay money to the countries which are doing the things which “cause warming”?
Between the Paris Climate Treaty, and immigration, there should be no doubt as to what the real agenda is.
China is the model. That’s why CO2 from China is good and there is no mainstream environmental outrage about the real environmental disaster there with regards to real pollution.
Ironic- The Chinese used to ride bicycles. Now they’ve all gotten cars, and they’ve built wide highways and there is now massive auto traffic there… while we are more and more being reduced to riding bicycles; cities like NY are taking away huge numbers of parking spaces to make bike lanes, and speed limits in many cities are being reduced to 25MPH….
And the Paris treaty would have us pay money to the places that are doing the very opposite….. So even if “Global Warming” were real, what sense would that make? Yet somehow, those who support it are incapable of seeing the basic flaw in their logic….
Electric cars only make sense for virtue signaling cucks who hate freedom.
If, somehow, the economics and physics were there, I’d say electric vehicles make sense for people with certain lifestyles. As it stands, they are by and large government-subsidized overpriced death traps the majority of Deploristan couldn’t and shouldn’t use. Is there an EV that can provide even 75% the functionality of an F150 at the same price? The only way they start “making sense” is by robbing all the people who currently do not have them, and then making it nearly impossible through fascist(“progressive”) laws for the normies to own an ICE vehicle. But you’re right. The majority of the people driving these things are like the smug bastards on that South Park hybrid episode.
Pretty soon they’ll probably start handing out tickets to us drivers of IC-engined cars for not virtue-signaling when we turn…
What is great about the Volt is that you have TWO choices of fuel. That is what i love about it. This is the best electric vehicle available.
We can probably expect to see a serious push towards electric cars like the volt once they start to charge us by the mile to drive. They can’t even keep the roads in decent shape now with the gas tax on every gallon of fuel we have now. That is if we’re even allowed to drive and not forced into rented self driving electric cars by making the insurance so high for traditional vehicles unaffordable.
Have you seen this? http://af.reuters.com/article/africaTech/idAFL5N1LR0LH
Not surprising. Subsidize something get more of it.
Thanks, Johnny!
As I rant about to near-exhaustion, EVs are entirely creatures of subsidies and mandates, without which they would be what they have been since the IC car began outperforming them (economically, practically) more than 100 years ago: low-volume toys for the very rich and engineering concepts.
As mass market cars, they are economically and functionally absurd.
eric, from some folks smarter than me.
“The men that American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest the most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” — H L Mencken (attributed: source unknown)
“Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant” — H L Mencken
“He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Adapted from Dante.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho
Has anyone been able to figure out the cost comparison between only using the ICE to charge the battery (never plugging in to charge the battery) versus never using the ICE to charge the battery (only driving less than 40 miles and plugging in every night) for the Volt?
For example, what is an approximate gasoline price per gallon that would be equivalent to the electricity cost of always keeping the battery charged?
Yes. But it varies by the cost of electricity per kWhr in your region. In my area, 1 kWhr of electricty costs $ 0.07. Depending on the weather, a kWhr will get you between 2-6 miles because of having to heat the cabin or the seat electrically without the waste heat of the engine that isn’t running. I normally get 4 miles/kWhr.
Using only gasoline and never plugging in you get anywhere from 36-50 depending mostly on weather, terrain, and driving style. I got down to about 42 MPG and stayed there after a few thousand miles of of interstate travel in both winter and summer. 38 MPG in extended sub-zero January weather.
I use about 10 of the 16 kWhr battery before the genset comes on after plugging in.
That means about $0.70 cents for the same distance driven only on gasoline. Premium gasoline (which is recommended for my early model of Volt) costs about $2.69 in my area. Because plugging into the community charger is included in my lease, I don’t currently pay the utility directly for my daily commute.
Otherwise though the difference is $2 per gallon by using electricity or a saving of about $0.05 per mile.
If all my miles had been electric I would have saved about $3,200 in the last 60,000 miles driven. But with all the cross-country highway travel usually only two thirds of my miles are electric. This is why the premium paid for a new Volt is not recovered in fuel savings but why the used Volts are so attractive when they can be found. The longer the car is owned, the greater the savings. If sold just before the end of the automotive life of the battery, projected to be a period of 10 years, after say 150,000 miles you might save 7,500 or more.
Initial leases were very attractive at $250/month. I don’t know what they are now. But that is also an option if all you use it for is commuting and the very occasional road trip.
I guess that is why they HAD to find a way to kill off the VW TDI diesels…. Who’d pay a premium for a car that gets in the low 40’s MPG-wise on gas, when they could’ve bought a TDI for less which gets over 50MPG- and has a phenomenal resale value?
That’s the thing though. You aren’t paying a premium to drive the Volt ONLY on gas. You are paying a premium for the acceleration and road manners and the ability to skip most trips to the gas station.
For regular extremely long trip lengths, a vehicle such as the TDI or the Prius is ideal since you are burning gas anyway.
The genset on the Volt is for the expected and unavoidable but still least frequent use case.
As most know THEY were pushing Global Cooling a few decades ago, but that didn’t really have the same kind of traction as Global Warming. The True Beauty of the Global Warming Scam is that when temperatures finally do cool off, Naturally of course, THEY will be able to claim that all THEY did, to make it happen, worked! Even though it will actually have nothing to do with it – True Centralized Tyrannical Governmental Beauty!!!
According to some ways of looking at the data we already back in the cooling trend.
Talk about cooling, we had temps at night in the 50’s here in southern KY.- in AUGUST- where it would normally barely get out of the high 70’s! Last two summers have been the shortest and coolest in the 16 years I’ve been here, and pretty much ever in the memory of locals. (Figures! I get acclimated to the heat for the first time in my life….then it turns cold!)
You should see the plots Tony Heller is doing. Number of days over X degrees is very telling. The number of hot days is declining, not increasing.
For instance:
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/08/frequency-of-hot-days-in-the-midwest-down-more-than-99/
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/01/how-not-to-calculate-temperatures-part-1/
Last summer was a hot bitch here. This summer has been too except for 3 weeks or so during August and Sept. We’ve been back up to over 100 this week and corresponding warm mornings.
Monday is supposed to be a high of 78 with the rest of the week about 70 or a couple degrees warmer. Hot summer, not so hot summer, winter before last, cold cold cold and this past winter very warm. I call this climate change. Everybody in Texas in my lifetime has called it climate change…Oh wait, they just called it Texas weather. If you don’t like it, hang around a bit and it’ll change. Uh oh, it’s that change word again.
WTF do these idiots think climate does? It changes, always has, always will till it ain’t climate any longer.
Exactly, 8.
They call them “greenhouse gases”- well the idea was supposed to be, that the gases create a canopy, which makes the environment into a defacto greenhouse- a greenhouse is a structure in which extremes are moderated due to the enclosure and the effects of trapped heat from the sunlight, etc.
Well if recent decades have proven anything, it’s that rather than our climate being moderated….we are indeed seeing wild extremes!
Heat and drought in the western US at the same time the east and midwest are wet and abnormally cool; cool summers and mild winters; then hot summers and freezing cold winters with record-breaking snow..
But no matter what the conditions, they’ll always say “Oh, yeah- that’s to be expected, says the GW/CC model”- Yes, it’s to be expected because they change the model when these extremes actually occur; but before that, they were telling a different story. So they’re wrong when they try and predict a few years ahead, but they can change their model to accomodate the present conditions, and then call it “science”.
The best part is when they tell us what happened 8 billion years ago! “You see, the content of unicorn feces from Hasbro period (We know the fossils are that old because of the rock layer we found them in, and we know the rock layer is that old because of the type of fossils we find in it!) contains .000028% more boogeronium and playdoughium than unicorn feces from the Humecronyn era, indicating the environment was richer in bullshittium, which required a .003*F lower temperature to survive….”
This is very similar to what I intend to do with my old one owner 73 Blazer. The 350 SB has seen two rebuilds and can no longer be rebuilt. And even going with a crate motor is likely to see me with a 12MPG gas hog with the 4.11 diffs even though it was upgraded to a 700R4 on the last rebuild. I’ve been thinking about converting it to a Ford Ecoboost, but I feel Henry rolling around in his grave. I’ve also given great consideration to going electric hybrid like the volt. It’s mainly a hunting / forest logging road crawler that I tow behind my Dmax Silverado. Being a 73 I’m under no constraints with whatever setup I use since the Pollution Police leave everything prior to 74 alone for now at least. I’ve found several Motor / Speed controller options available for DIY E Vehicles. All I have to do in this regard is decide how much power I really need. Whether I want to continue to use the 700R4 or go directly to the 3 Speed transfer case. And how much I’m willing to spend on batteries. The charging power will be provided by a Kohler or Briggs and Stratton Water Cooled Diesel pushing permanent magnet alternators wound for the voltage I end up using. Likely 144 volts DC. I can do this for about 20K with Lithium batteries and less than 10 to 12K for lead acid. The lithium pack would eventually pay for itself. So it’s just deciding on what I can live with on the initial outlay. It’s amazing how much stuff is available for the DIYer.
Lead-acid batteries have a very limited life in EVs – I’d spring for the lithium batteries.
Years ago here down South people were taking old pickup trucks and sticking diesel tractor engines in them…
’73 Blazer eh? K5? Worried about fuel mileage with a budget of 20K? That’s easy for me. I’d build a stump puller 426 SBC with a Holley TBI so I wouldn’t have to deal with carb mods for severe angles. A New Venture Gear 4500 tranny and away I’d go. Unless you want bulletproof diffs and I’d use two modified for steering GM 11.5″ ring gear one ton rears front and back. Both steering would make up for the 35’s lack of radius……yeeeehaaaaww
Not worried about mileage so much, it’s just the allure of epower for me. I believe that once the usual suspects stop suppressing the energy solutions that already exist it will be the way to go. I agree with EP 100% on how the current hybrids are over complicated Clusterflucks by design. And the Awesome Tesla is a Liberal’s wet dream with all the subsidies. But once the technologies to store and deliver huge amounts of electric power break fully out into the wild E power will rule. It’s just a toy. And sneaking around through the mountains nearly silently gets my shorts tingling.
It’s already pretty well bullet proofed and fuel injected can’t steer the back axle but it’s not really a dedicated rock crawler either. And after driving manual trannys (woops didn’t mean to offend anybody) for too many years I’ve grown to really like my autos now when they’re geared right to provide good compression braking. Something the electric system will also do while recharging the batteries.
Yep lead acids are really not the best choice at all if you’re going to use the thing a lot. None will deliver anywhere near the life cycle Lithium Ions will. I’ve got some Lithium Ion / Graphene Hybrids I’m using in mike bike. They promise to make the current chemistry obsolete. Cheaper too!
Quee, I realized after I posted I’d also use a couple big mufflers but electric would be quiet and for hunting I like the quietest thing possible. That goes for public lands too but I no longer do that.
People have been using diesels so long now game ignores it for the most part.
Game wardens in Texas have had the decent guys replaced with 25 year old little Hitlers who are abusive enough to warrant killing. Some like to remind you they’re state police gods. Even the vehicles have state police on them, sometimes completely without the Parks and Wildlife badging.
Yep hear you on the Little Hitlers. Next door here in Nuevo Mexico the the state game wardens are joined at the hip with the feds. With all the national forest around here they terrorize hunting groups enforcing state laws. At least one group was arrested for “negligent use of a firearms” a felony for drinking beer around the campfire at night while their guns were “in their possession” No shooting or loud noise at all. Just a show of force by jack booted thugs. Recently a local American Legion post was raided by BATF and State police looking for underage drinkers. This is a club you need to be a card carrying member to get in the door. They left citing the bartender for “serving a drunk”. Turns out he was the one who let them in the back door and had had been drinking Vodka out in his truck. They don’t call this “The Land of Entrapment” for nothing!
No shit Quee. I know a guy who went to the top of the NM DPS but that wasn’t satisfactory for him so now he’s DEA…..knockin em dead….literally. Got his own fiefdom somewhere.
Am I missing something here? When the Volt kicks over to using the gas generator it can go another 400 miles before needing to replace the 9 gallons. That’s less than 40 miles a gallon. Am I suppose to be impressed?
My math comes to 44.44 mpg. Add on the original 50 electric miles and you get a combined 55.55 mpg.
Not too shabby eh?
About the same as the Geo Metro I bought nearly new for 5 grand.
In practice, you need to drive more than 2400 miles before the lifetime MPG drops below 100 MPG. After 6 cross-country jaunts my lifetime MPG is 60 MPG. The only impressive thing to notice is that most frequent trips, those below 40 miles, are all-electric.
Where the Volt falls back to normal is in the outlying use case of a long-distance multi-tank trip. If you ALWAYS exceed 40 miles on every single trip, you are better off with a parallel hybrid like the standard Prius that sips gas consistently on every trip (as opposed to the Plug-In Prius). But that is a very small group of people. In town, commuting in stop and go traffic, the Volt is in its element. Its quick 0-40 time is ideal when having to deal with numerous traffic lights. It simply does not waste gas idling because the engine is off until you’ve crossed the intersection once you’ve run out of battery power for the plug.
Fiskar Karma, admittedly a low-volume vehicle, had exactly this kind of setup. But closer to home, the Honda Accord Hybrid is essentially the same thing. It has a clutch that can kick in at highway speeds to drive the wheels directly, but reviews suggest this plays hardly any role in reality. Honda is now getting ready to put that powertrain into the CRV, first in Europe, and eventually it’s a near-certainty here also.
Top Gear built one of these, as a gag. The Eagle Hammerhead i-Thrust, I think they called it. James observed that it’s essentially the idea of a locomotive engine, which is ancient. Locomotives are supposed to be heavy, so they can carry heavy batteries like Ni-Fe, cheaper and longer lasting than the light ones.
But there’s another circumstance where electric might make sense. If you already have two IC engine cars, and need a third for a child in college living at home, an old Nissan Leaf might make sense. If he needs to go farther than normal, he can ask to use one of our other cars (And we can ask where he’s going). I see them listed at $4K or so, far less than a mechanically sound IC engine car. So what am I waiting for? I figure that California will have problems getting the uptake rate for electrics above 1% or so. Only the proverbial 1%, with a half dozen other cars at home, will buy them. So they’ll probably subsidize power for those who drive them, at the expense of everyone else. That’s when it will make sense.
As I’ve suggested before I’d love the VOLTEC drivetrain in a cross-over. GM missed the mark not starting with a pick-up that was about the size of an S-10. I’d like the VOLTEC in my Buick Encore but it won’t happen.
Actually, they called it “Geoff,” I believe.
re the title: “The One Electric Car That Makes Some Sense”
Ten seconds of googling:
price of chevy volt: From $33,220
price of honda civic: From $18,740
price difference (without the hefty federal subsidy, which will go away if they kill off IC engines): about $14,500. (Note Civic is a nicer car)
Cost of gas right now in Austin, inflated by Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath: $2.50 gallon
Gallons of gas that can be bought for that price difference: 5,800
MPG of Civic: 42 hwy / 32 city — avg about 37 MPG
Miles Civic could be driven for that price difference: about 215,000
add in the cost of the electricity and the occasional tank of gas to power the Volt, plus the finance carrying costs for that $14,500 difference, and the breakeven point is probably between 400,00 to infinity miles, depending on the finance costs.
This electric car still makes no fucking sense compared to the alternatives — even if you take the federal subsidy and pretend it’s free money, it doesn’t pencil out unless you own the Volt a very long time.
It never pencils out within the useful life of the vehicle. somewhere on site in the comments is the analysis I do when people say a hybrid is cheaper in the long run. I plot out the total costs of vehicle + fuel for a Civic hybrid vs. a regular base civic. Out into 400K miles and it still doesn’t break even. I assume this will be the same in every like to like calculation. I really should make a spreadsheet for it so I can do it for any two cars.
Hi Jim,
But it’s better than a Tesla!
And at least there’s no range anxiety/preposterous recharge times.
That’s the main thing I was chewing on this time. I agree the fuel savings don’t justify the up front cost. But at least it’s a functionally viable car!
Unlike, say, the Tesla.
Or the Leaf.
Hi Eric,
I agree, it’s way better than a Tesla, but economically speaking it’s much worse than a Prius, which gets decent MPGs and a starting MSRP of From $23,475. And a Prius is arguably worse than a comparable IC engined car due to the boatload of gas you can buy with the price differential, under all but the most drastic changes in gas prices.
As you’ve noted many times, this is all about radical environmentalist statist control freaks who want to kill off the IC engines, consequences and costs be damned, trying to do that one stab in the back at a time. I think you put it more diplomatically, tho.
For those who buy one new, hoping to save money on fuel….any fuel savings will never come close to making up for what they will lose in depreciation. Even if they drive it till the wheels fall off, and even IF the car does last ten years (This is GM we’re talking about..) -which will be a long-shot (Do you see anyone driving electrics/hybrids from 10 years ago today?) they’re still not gaining anything.
And of course, as with all electrics, those who use the clean/green argument, lose, because the generation of electricity is no cleaner than running an IC engine…it’s just that the emissions are in a location far-removed from the car, so the greenie doesn’t have to think about them.
If you buy them used when the differential has dropped to near 0 but there is no credit, it can work out. New, never.
You also need to account for the Accord level trim and pricey entertainment/management console. Best to compare it to its stable mate, the highest Premier trim-level Chevy Cruze at $26,233. Still a steep premium, and still doesn’t pencil out, but let’s be honest a person can buy a electric scooter or a bicycle and save even more money.
You’re making the assumption that one must purchase the Volt.
With the cachet of Tesla and low gasoline prices, there have been excellent lease deals on the Volt.
Plus, given the significant improvements from the first to second generation Volt model, I’d never buy one.
But am looking forward to lease deals on the 2018 model, late summer of next year…
It’s even worse than that, Jim. Batteries don’t just degrade over time; they also degrade from use/number of charging cycles. So even if that Volt could make it to 400K miles, it would probably require at least two new sets of batteries to do $o. Figger[sic] the cost of that into the equation, and the break-even point becomes even more unattainable.
Now I’ve seen some Ford Powerstroke (older ones) go 400K miles on an original unmolested engine; and I had a gas Ford van that had 300K on it when I sold it, and it still ran good….but I’ve never seen any GM product rack-up that kinda mileage without major surgery…..and I sincerely doubt that these li’l ‘lectric toys will be the ones to change that! 🙂
Greetings, all. My wife and I are owners of two electric cars. First one purchased in March 2017, a 2015 Leaf purchased two years old (off lease) at 1/3 retail price – it had 5700 miles on it (we eschewed the $7500 tax relief for multiple reasons, including Libertarian/Constitutional beliefs; plus we’d not have gotten the full $7500 anyway as we don’t make enough money….).The tax relief is only when you but these NEW. It’s a great car, if used within its “flight envelope” as pilots would say. I’d been an “early adopter” on a Prius in 2005 (waiting 9 months for it, just like a baby), more about which in a moment.
Our second electric car is my wife’s 2014 Volt purchased this summer, at about 1/2 retail price (depreciation is not as severe as the Leaf). Wonderful car, overall, and both of us prefer it to the Leaf. My wife looked at the massive savings of our Leaf in running costs, and asked – is there are car I could use, but which could also be our trip car? Yes, I responded; a Chevy Volt. Our 1st generation car only goes 40 miles on charge (sometimes 39 or 41), then a 1.4 litre gas engine kicks in to generate power. But 90% of the time in her daily commute and work driving, it is sufficient.
We have a single Level 2 charger in our garage, and I plug in my Leaf at my weekday job, too (no “extra” cost to me – it costs the parking deck about 75 cents a day). Sorry about the rest of the drivers subsidizing my charge, but hey I didn’t make up the rules. Besides, I unwillingly subsidize tons of things I don’t want to with my taxes, and have no recourse.
When I bought the Prius years ago, people were intrigued. I explained that “conventional” cars were kind of like the cheapest top-loader washing machine. If you throw in 5 socks and 2 pairs of underwear, the water fills to the max and you waste tons of energy. The Prius was like a smart, expensive front-loader washing machine. If you throw in 5 socks and 2 pairs of underwear, you program it to say it’s a small load and it uses almost no hot water/energy. People “got it.”
But the Volt makes the Prius (even “Prius Prime” with its pathetic 20 mile electric only range) look like a Model T Ford in comparison.
And it’s not even only about energy savings. Nor, for me, about C02, since my weekend job is a Biblical Lutheran Pastor, and I don’t worship the “environment.” (My statement about so-called “global warming” which generally leaves people rather speechless is two fold; “I don’t believe in that false-religion; and if global warming is so true, why to scientists have to falsify their data for publication to supposedly prove they are right?”).
Pastor Glenn
Hi Pastor Glenn,
Thanks for relating your experiences with the Leaf and the Volt. As regulars here know, I am and have been very skeptical about electric cars, for a variety of reasons. But the Volt is different. Having driven pretty much every electric that’s been available since the ’90s-era GM Impact, I was impressed by this one’s (and this one’s alone) real-world functionality.
That plus a price that is not preposterous (as the Tesla’s is) make this one a winner as far as I am concerned.
Scientists don’t falsify, they estimate, adjust, and infill 😉
Sorry to disillusion you, Brent, but some scientists do, indeed, falsify.
It’s a joke. They make up other terms for it.
As a Volt owner, I can’t disagree with any of this. It’s been the most reliable, practical, and fun-to-drive car I’ve ever owned.
Visibilty sucks (wide A-pillars and rear airdam obstruct too many things), it can’t carry many full-sized people, has minimal cargo space, but as a commuting vehicle for trips 40 miles and under? Only bicycles and scooters use less gasoline.
Overwrought concerns about the cost battery replacement and no subsidy for the second owner have held the price of a used Volt down to within the budget of many people. A stroke of luck if you are the type to drive a car until the wheel fall off. Replacing the 16-20 kWhr battery will be one of the smallest expenses for any EV. But it still has four GM-designed electric power windows so plan for that expense instead.
“Automobiles have been exceedingly clean for decades…” Well not exactly. The problem with fossil-fuel burning IC engines is the long-lived greenhouse gasses they emit, primarily CO2, and to a lesser extent, CH4, and N2O and release those gasses into the Earth’s atmosphere. Sure forests, corn fields and rice paddies can absorb some of the CO2 through photosynthesis but since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the worldwide excess of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels has increased dramatically. The data is clear and speaks for self. See here:  https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html
Now the people who figure this stuff out are clever people. They have the kind of smarts that people have who successfully design, build and fly space probes like Cassini. People who can figure out precisely when and for how long to fire a combination of thrusters to put a satellite in a specific orbit trajectory a billion miles from Earth. Smart people just like them have figured out how greenhouse gasses are heating up the earth’s climate. They have figured out the ocean’s heat budget on a global scale and the impact that rising atmospheric greenhouse gasses have on the Earth’s climate. They say it is getting hotter and will continue to get hotter if fossil fuels continue to be burned at the present rates. The results of this heating effect are known and can be reliably predicted by these smart people. Ocean temperature will increase. Polar ice will melt. Sea levels will rise. I believe them. So do the governments around the world, including China, Japan, Europe, Canada, and yes, even U.S., save for it’s current leadership. Of course for a variety of reasons (money and profit being an important one) there will always be deniers just as there will always be flat-earthers. So where does all this put the IC engines that now power the millions or billions of private and commercial vehicles around the world? Clearly given the present state of technology, battery-powered EV’s are not the answer as this just transfers and centralizes the greenhouse gas emissions up the line. And no, I’m not a “clover”. Actually my daily commute is a Kawasaki ZG1000, which I ride pretty hard!
In fact, the science is so certain, and the scientists so intelligent, that sometimes they can make a correct weather forecast all the way up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Hi Steve,
C02, as you know, constitutes a fractional component of Earth’s atmosphere; the majority of the gasses being Nitrogen and Oxygen. It is very debatable whether the slight increase in C02 is the source of what is styled “climate change” and even more questionable whether the slice of that produced by man is the source. Natural sources of C02 are enormous (relative to the whole) and, moreover, the climate does change. It is natural, cyclical – and may be the result of numerous other factors.
I am hugely suspicious of the anthropogenic “climate change” religion because I know for a fact that the data has been manipulated (for one) and (for two) the “threat” is clearly being over-hyped and (three) it serves a very clear agenda – the same agenda served by the “warrnterr” and the war on some drugs.
It is a means of controlling people. Observe that the elites are not sacrificing for the sake of reducing their C02 emissions. It is always us – the average people – who are “asked” to “sacrifice.” If this “climate change” were genuinely the threat we are told it is, then surely, these elites would be scaling back the single greatest effluent source of C02 produced by human activity? I mean the military, of course… how much C02 is emitted by the Army, Air Force and Navy in a year? I suspect – strongly – it is considerably more than the output of all the nation’s private motor vehicles combined.
Also: It ought to trouble any fair-minded person that they style this business so demagogically.
“Climate change” is a political – a demagogic – term.
Anything can be characterized as “climate change.” It is not a scientific term for precisely this reason. It strikes me as being of the same species as “Patriot” Act… the words chosen to stifle questioning and smear any who dare to.
You are right.
There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm — about 18 times higher than today.
The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today– 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html#anchor147264
You know what I found when I examined the records from the Jurrasic and Paleozoic periods? NOTHING! It’s non-existant data from mythical time periods, based on nothing but fantasy and speculation. It might seem O-K when it aids our arguments- but if we buy into their BS, we’re already halfway along the track to being co-opted.
Sooner or later, they’ll just change the mythical non-existent data to support their own agenda (That’s what modern “science” is)-I mean, they change the REAL data from real instruments in the present…so changing a manufactured non-existent past would be even easier.
Remember when eggs, butter and salt were killing us all?
If they can’t get the present right…..
After 300ppm there’s really nothing CO2 can do to warm the planet. It’s done everything it can. Actually the returns diminish well before that, but 300ppm is what our high priests are implying as ideal. So 400ppm or 4000ppm it doesn’t much matter.
These morons point to Venus because Venus has lots of CO2. Venus has lots of atmosphere and they know the public by and large has forgotten PV=NRT if their HS even taught it to them.
Eric, I agree. What has me concerned about this whole climate change thing is that it seems to be a way to convince us to strap ourselves to the post and take the 50 lashes. It reminds me of the assassin in the De Vinci Code movie. I’m so bad, I must suffer, take that, me! If one reads the white paper produced by the Club of Rome https://climatism.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/in-searching-for-a-new-enemy-to-unite-us-we-came-up-with-the-threat-of-global-warming/ we see that the agenda is population reduction. The solutions being offered are laughable in terms of what the giant wealth distribution scheme of carbon credits will actually do, which is practically nothing. Well, with the exception of making Al Gore fabulously wealthy.
Are we, meaning us useless eaters, really responsible for pollution and such or is it the corporations that offer only silly “solutions” such as the Prius? We can only buy what is offered, after all. Is that my fault?
The bigger picture is the struggle of the PTB to keep real energy solutions from emerging. Dr. Steven Greer has much to say about this. Zero point energy, as Nikola Tesla was playing around with, poses an existential threat to the existing order such that the entire power structure of the world would be upended and these self professed “rulers” would be rendered moot. THAT’S what’s going on here. Better to blame us than them.
The Volt seems to be a cross between the electric locomotive which generates power only when the giant diesel engine is running and an energy storing vehicle which must be recharged, the battery in the volt acting as an electric flywheel that keeps everything rolling until it needs a spin from the engine. Until these new energy technologies emerge, it seem to be the best solution.
As most know THEY were pushing Global Cooling a few decades ago, but that didn’t really have the same kind of traction as Global Warming. The True Beauty of the Global Warming Scam is that when temperatures finally do cool off, Naturally of course, THEY will be able to claim that all THEY did, to make it happen, worked! Even though it will actually have nothing to do with it – True Centralized Tyrannical Governmental Beauty!!!
Steve,
Below is a list of the seven greenhouse gases:
Water vapor (H2O) 95% of all greenhouse gases. Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin
Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Methane (CH4)
Nitrous oxide (N2O)
Ozone (O3)
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Hydrofluorocarbons (incl. HCFCs and HFCs)
I recommend you read the following where the analysis in this article shows total human greenhouse gas contributions add up to about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect. Go to http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
I’m responsible for 98.4% of the methane….
Hey Steve! First of all, thanks for a polite and well worded comment explaining your support of Catastrophic Antropogenic Global Warming (CAGW). Too many times any mention of CAGW devolves into name calling and insults.
Reading your comment, it seems to me that it can be paraphrased like this: “Many very bright and trustworthy people have told me that CAGW is happening, and I believe them.” The fact is, we humans often approach complex subjects like that, and when we do not have direct knowledge of the subject, that may be our only available option. On the other hand, such an approach is not science, it is faith. Luckily, some climate data CAN, in fact, be analyzed by the average person. Fortunately, the US has easily available, relatively complete temperature data sets for long periods of time. (Sadly, most of the world has much worse data available.) Also fortunately, there is software available that allows the average person to examine that US data and to determine personally whether the data supports or does not support the CAGW ideas. Here is a link https://realclimatescience.com/2017/08/new-video-getting-started-with-unhiding-the-decline/ explaining how to download the US climate data set, how to get the software for analysis, and how to use it.
You may be surprised at what you find.
CO2 is not pollution. CO2 warms to the planet in ever diminishing returns. The vast bulk of the warming that CO2 could practically accomplish is achieved somewhere in 200s ppm level. After 300ppm it’s not even worth discussing. This is due to CO2 only being able to trap certain wavelengths and once it’s all trapped there just ain’t no more. The climate scientists claim there is a magnification of this extremely tiny warming by methane release and other things. Problem is it hasn’t happened. It’s a domino effect and it’s just as valid in climate as it was wrt Vietnam. So they have to make it happen. They do so through creative presentation, adjustment, and estimate.
They are smart people and they know the public is dumb/ignorant. Since most other smart people benefit from going along with it, they are generally safe until they run into smart people who have don’t benefit from going along with it. Then what they are doing becomes exposed. Of course that’s why there is the “denier” label. It’s to socially silence those who see the tricks. People like Tony Heller especially and to much lesser extend the less interested people who understand data analysis and presentation like myself. I’ve discussed their practices here before but the end result is they impose a warming signal on the data through adjustments and estimates and then declare it proof their theory is correct. That’s not science, it’s circular reasoning.
We are looking at religion too. They scare people with natural processes too. Like ancient priests would do with an eclipse.
Wow, neato! There are people who know how to figure out complicated stuff like that! What do they use, math or something? Far out.
I think you’ve vastly misjudged your audience Steve. That embarrassing ‘white paper’ summary of AGW strikes me as a direct projection of the insecurities of it’s peddlers. “It’s complicated, it’s hard, but some smart people agree so let’s follow them like blind disciples and tear down modernity in the process”. Did you actually believe this to be a viable sales pitch to thinking adults? Are you so lost in your own mindset as to not grasp the hilarity of this nonsense to thinking people. Are you not conscious of the breadth of the chasm separating this from the rational process that most people have when met with a topic like this? I’m sure in your blind devotion all seems normal. AGW is undeniable and the missing evidence and embarrassing emails are just a monied smear campaign. But the fact is the whole preposterous idea, and worse, your concise, matter-of-fact telling of it (lifted word for word from An Inconvenient Truth) are fringe lunacy. Not mainstream, or even one standard deviation from the mean, but fringe crazy. I’m sure your global warming club comrades tell you this is all real and normal but see for yourself. The replies here are fact laden, sourced and expertly refuted. People are citing from a broad set of available facts, not ‘lost’ datasets. And this is clearly the mainstream. Men talking about cars and motorcycles is as mainstream as it gets. You said so yourself. So why are you so far off the reservation yet so confident you hold some clear and undeniable truth that we are all ignorant to? Can you really honestly believe that it is all of us that are clueless and not just you. Complicated as it may be, do the math. Or just take it from someone who is really good at math:. It’s you.
BTW, the movie you stole your post from is 10 years old. It’s predictions never came to pass. And what do we call doing the same thing and expecting a different result? Just sayin’. It’s you.
Who the fuck asked them to build and launch probes like Cassini? Nobody. Nothing but a bunch of thieving assholes. Fake ass heroes deserving of nothing but scorn and brickbats.
They are nothing more than thugs. Not something to be admired. They deserve to have the shit beaten out of them. Robbed penniless. And left bleeding and crying in a ditch somewhere.
Nothing they have been done can be trusted. It is all fruit of a rotten tree.
Hopefully this whole shambles of a technological dictatorship will be overthrown by moral people that understand and respect private property.
They have to exist somewhere. Maybe they’re already here among us.
Tor, you must have channeled me. It sounds like some shit I’d say and the way I’d say it. BTW, I totally agree. I was going to say something very similar but I was going to include the fact we live under martial law as do US allies and countries we’ve raped.
The wife put in an old VHS tape earlier since the DVD was acting up (sayonara mofo…..and not the movie)of The Graduate. The captain of the plane was saying how much he appreciated everyone’s using their airlines and the expected stuff. Then I threw in with his voice “And you won’t believe this but in 40 years we’ll be treating you like criminals and there won’t be one damned enjoyable moment on our airline or any other?”
Opening scene, approach into LA, The Graduate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjtoi6Z4lAg
May I ask you something, what do you think of me?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3lKbMBab18
So if CO2 is the problemo, and it has increased exponentially over the last couple’a hunnert years, while the population of humans who also emit a lot of CO2 has also increased exponentially over the last couple’a hunnert years……oh wait….could there be a connectione there? Or maybe it’s that we’ve torn down all the trees and other plants which convert CO2 into oxygen, so we could make big filthy cities in which to cram all of the CO2-emitting people and their CO2 emiting cars and factories?
Either way, I guess we better kill off 95% of the population, or else they won’t be able to enjoy the benefits of living in a mud hut in an unpolluted world.
The Greenie-weenie New World Order: Killing you for your own good. [Please, just ignore facts, like the one about the junk put out by ONE volcano alone, put more crap into the air than all the collective years of the Industrial Revolution. Hey! Maybe if we had sacrificed a few virgins and that other 94% of the population, that volacano would never have shot it’s wad….)
Weatherman said it was gonna be 85 today. It’s 96 right now. Same deal for 90% of the rest of the days this summer- Maybe they’re better at predicting the distant past, before records were kept and before there was agenda. Hmmm…constantly, every summer, temps are always 5-10 degrees higher than predicted. I guess that’s so they can claim the temps are “above normal” and say “See? Global warming! Oooo…but we’ll say ‘climate change’, just in case the winter is extra cold and snowy!”.
Nunzio, I heard this DJ say yesterday it was gonna be 94-96 and then mentioned it was September. I guess it was his way of pointing out global warming but he never said anything to make you think it was cooler than normal or hotter. In fact, we often have 100+ degree days in Sept. and have since I can remember. 101 yesterday and 102 today at the house. Nothing unusual for people who’ve lived here 70 years or much less.
We’ve harvested watermelons and cantaloupe for Thanksgiving dinner along with fresh maters, pepppers, squash, etc.
I’m not a climate change denier though. Ever since I could remember people said if you don’t like the weather right now just wait a while. Our first norther about a week before Xmas last year and not much winter.
The year before it was colder than a well diggers butt, constant freezing rain and sleet along with snow storms that piled up against the north side of everything. I can’t forget it cause I was, for the most part, driving a KW T 800 with side windows that wouldn’t get closer to the top than 4 inches and no boot on the gearshift so all that crap off the engine with its leaky exhaust, diesel and coolant ran around in the cab with me and a big leak right over my right shoulder of freezing rain and snow. Ah, what memories….
8, when I lived in Longview, the East Texans would say, “If you don’t like the weather, drive up the road a mile or two”. I’ve watched it rain across the road from our jobsite in Tyler and hoped it would keep coming and cool us off, but it stayed on the other side of the road.
Frankly, Steve, you are so full of environmentalist statist crap that it must be dribbling out of your ears. Yes, those people purveying this nonsense are “clever” – clever at forcefully pushing an anti-freedom, anti-human quasi-religion that just happens to lead to serfdom for the individual and unlimited power for the elite. Clever control freaks who suffer from the pride and hubris of believing that THEY are going to control the earth’s climate. (Though of course what it’s really about is controlling people.)
As Reid Bryson, the scientist who founded the modern discipline of climate science, stated about global warming: “It’s a bunch of hooey.”
Friend of mone has a VOlt, and can’t praise it enough. Fine……
We compared actual total costs for a cross cuntry trip.. his obnoxiously tiny Volt and almost NO space inside, at 45 mpg times the then two bick price for regular gasoline…. then HE had to add the cost of overnight accomodations to his fuel costs. My van only returns about 18 mpg but has so nuch room inside I can carry a WHOLE bunch of stuff (two road bikes, coffee roaster, brewing equipment, full set of tools…. powered cooler for food along the way…….. I don’t have to find a motel room and eat at restaurants along the way. Get sleepy? Find a roadside rest area, WalMart, county park, friend’s driveway….. the bed I have in there is as comfortable as the one I have at home.
He must arrange his overnights ahead of time, and keep to that schedule. I make my schedule as I go along my way. Total cost for the tripps are abou equal.
Then, I can, and have, carried five thousand pounds of green coffee inside my van….. and STILL had rooom to sleep at night inside it. He MIGHT be able to find space to fir two coffee bags inside his Volt…. and space for maybe a SubWay sandwich besides.
Hi Tionoco,
All true, but – to be fair to the Volt – comparing its utility with a full-size van isn’t really fair. The apples-apples comparison would be to compare the Volt with a Corolla or similar.
I mentioned my own experience with the car. I was able to drive it from my place in the Woods down the mountain – to Roanoke – and back almost entirely on the batteries, without the IC engine coming on at all. If I had to commute into Roanoke every day, I am confident I could do so using almost no gas at all. I think a full 9 gallon tank could get me through an entire month.
That’s pretty cool – even if it is a GM product!
Somebody LIKES their coffee! 😀
Heh, yeah, Tionico- people rag on my 10MPG vehicles too- but I make one trip to town abd come back with a 40 lb. bag of dog food; a 35 lb. bag of cat food; 20 lbs of bird seed. Groceries for 2 households; hardware and building supplies. That would be a full-time job and require umpteen trips in even a fairly decent sized car!
Other than as city cars or commuters, these little bitty things are pretty much useless, reagrdless of what provides the motive power; how many MPGs they get, or how cheap they are to operate. (The man carries a coffee bean roaster on road trips….now THAT’s dedication! :D)
Agreed. GM should have started with a pick-up around the S-10 or Colorado size. Huge frame for a battery that wouldn’t intrude on the passenger or cargo compartment. Oh well.
Hi Shock Me,
I would like – just for once – to see an EV built to emphasize economy. To buy and to drive. The Tesla annoys me because it is a performance car and a luxury car; it is ridiculous as an economic proposition.
Imagine a Volt, but 500 pounds lighter and focused on mileage and range. Instead of 50 or so miles on a charge, 75 – maybe 100.
And 60 MPG on the gas engine.
For about 26k or so…
Unfortunately, although you could engineer a lighter vehicle, the resulting cost of the materials would be greater. Aluminum, carbon fiber, and titanium aren’t as cheap as steel. And the weightiest component is the battery. Decrease the volume and mass of the battery and you might get what you want.
If a new battery chemistry from Proterra works out, you could shave 214 lbs of battery weight off.
Hi Shock,
It’s the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety crap that adds the most weight. Just to gibs you some sense of it, in the course of researching the stats of the Ferrari 365 GTB (I’m doing an “in the rearview” piece about this car) I find it weighed about 2,600 lbs. A new Corvette – almost exactly the same size car – weighs about 3,200 lbs. It’s not the aluminum V8 that makes the ‘Vette weigh that much, or its composite body panels, either….
Wouldn’t surprise me. Airbags, smog control, catalytic converters, power accessories, and any number of computers to manage the under-powered engines.
Gm tech is mighty damned impressive.
So the Volt does what Top Gear first demonstrated back in 2010… the car industry out-innovated by 3 middle aged TV presenters!
You probably won’t get carbon monoxide poisoning from the Chevy, so that’s definitely a refinement.
Agree that the Volt is the sole “electric” that makes sense. Therefore it will be eliminated.
Chevrolet Volt May Die In 2020…
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2017/07/report-chevrolet-volt-may-die-in-2020-be-replaced-by-plug-in-crossover/#ixzz4tBnrc86D
A cross-over? Yes please!
I suspect “Elon Musk” (is that its real name?) is really a replicant, i.e. artificial person.
His creators really need to work on facial expressions for the next generation.
Hi J,
He does look seriously unnatural…
“Elon Musk” sounds like an H.P. Lovecraft prayer to the old gods like Cthulhu. Dude creeps me out.
Sounds like a good name for a cologne: “Put on your Elon Musk! The cologne guaranteed to attract technocrats, crony-capitalists, and leftist girly-men. Only $35.99* ”
[*=price after applicable tax credit]
The world has truly gone crazy! GM, the company which can’t even make a functional gas car anymore, is making the one practical, sane electric vehicle which makes sense? Can’t be!
What’s the catch? Does it burst into flames without warning? Do parts fall off as you drive down the street? Does the On-Star operator fart “Radar Love” when you turn on the radio?
Wow…we’re living in Bizarro World now!
I guess you don’t hate electric cars, Eric, but I still think you’re too harsh on them.
Here’s something no one has addressed: Electric cars could be eminently practical if we sacrificed a little bit of aesthetics. Highways could have trolley wires, like electric trains and buses do, or charging pickups embedded in the tarmac, like the old toy slot cars. That is, f there were really any sincerity to attacking the issues with electric vehicles. Battery powered cars could charge on the move this way, or just run directly from the wires. Braking energy, fed back into the system, would reduce the system load, as is done now with trains.
There would be no need for this infrastructure in town, of course, where batteries would be employed successfully.
With research there might be ways to charge moving vehicles contact-free — via some inductive method.
Musk quoted something like a six trillion a year! subsidy for internal combustion, including the cost of subsidizing oil companies. Well, sure enough, a quick search finds a report showing that, world-wide, “The Oil Industry Benefits From $5.3 Trillion in Subsidies Annually” (2015).
This isn’t counting the cost of the billions per year to the automakers — or the bailouts.
That would string a lot of wires. And finance substantial research into improvements.
Hi Mark,
I don’t hate electric cars; I hate Musk and Tesla… crony capitalism… mandates and subsidies…
Here, here. Musk looks like he drank too much chlorine in the swimming pool.
SW I have always wondered why his face looks so funny. As one who stridently avoids immersing my body in poisoned water, and even clean water, I wouldn’t know what a chlorine face looks like. Now I do.
Those figures are highly suspect. Just what form do these alleged “subsidies” take? If they are tax writeoffs to oil companies, that is, Uncle stealing less due to costs associated with the business, that is not a “subsidy.” A subsidy would be Uncle forcibly taking money out of your pocket and giving it to someone else.
Musk is the most subsidized person in the country, possibly on the planet. He is pond scum.
I think the point of my argument is being lost. Gasoline vehicles have been far more subsidized than Musk ever will be, and of course he’s a scourge, but he’s also an artificial creation. A front man for government adventures into social manipulation.
An IMF report states 88 billion cash subsidies from the G20 alone, much of the rest “environmental costs,” (which I agree are suspect, or at least not monetizable). That’s just for the oil industry. The auto industry is billions upon billions more annually.
Meantime, we’re so far gone we don’t even know what clean air is like, nor seem to care to. I don’t subscribe to “Libertarianism,” we had a sensible enough system with “free enterprise” and “uniform system of law,” and shouldn’t seek to taint it with “isms,” but whether you subscribe to it or not, the IC engine is an abomination and absurdity, forcing us to live in our own toxic wastes, for no good reason, other than that the Robber Baron class wanted a profitable market for its oil holdings (before all the modern uses for petroleum became known). Now, “Libertarianism” doesn’t believe in imposing upon another, which is exactly what auto exhaust, and the other negative consequences of combustion engines — oil and gas leaks and spills for example, are doing.
I’m still a fan of gasoline cars, but, objectively, electric cars are superior in every respect, (including range, if we implemented the setup I outlined), which is the reason why they were shuffled off to the sidelines early last century.
It’s closer to the truth to say oil and gas companies are government franchises. The building of cars, roads, and the machines and fuels that run them are completely planned and controlled. No free enterprise going on at all.
The world is run by an oligarchy of transnational cronies. They are both a state owned, and state owning cabal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies
There’s still some wildcatters in ND, West TX, the roads in the black market city of Wenzhou, the Independent Texas Grid, but these are tiny exceptions to the great workfare, welfare, warfare, world wide web of control.
Types of energy subsidies are:
Direct financial transfers – grants to producers; grants to consumers; low-interest or preferential loans to producers.
Preferential tax treatments – rebates or exemption on royalties, duties, producer levies and tariffs; tax credit; accelerated depreciation allowances on energy supply equipment.
Trade restrictions – quota, technical restrictions and trade embargoes.
Energy-related services provided by government at less than full cost – direct investment in energy infrastructure; public research and development.
Regulation of the energy sector – demand guarantees and mandated deployment rates; price controls; market-access restrictions; preferential planning consent and controls over access to resources.
Failure to impose external costs – environmental externality costs; energy security risks and price volatility costs.
Depletion Allowance – allows a deduction from gross income of up to ~27% for the depletion of exhaustible resources (oil, gas, minerals).
Power Plant produced electricity isn’t clean. You’re leaving that part out.
If tomorrow there were no IC engines in the world. Rather everywhere had the same amount of vehicles but only electric and there were more power plants and grids to support them all. The amount of pollution would be the same.
The new power plant emissions would replace the IC emissions.
Your leftist fantasy of new government provided infrastructure doesn’t even make sense.
Malarky and leftist drivel. Modern IC engines are extremely clean and have been for decades.
The reason that electric cars lost favor early in the 20th century is that they were inferior to their gasoline-powered competitors. Remember, there was no market distortion at the time from a cadre of violent psychopaths (government) attempting to “nudge” people in one direction or another. Electric cars went by the wayside due to consumer choice.
In their current state of development very few people would choose them in the absence of gunvermin interference in the marketplace.
As far as your plans to string streetcar-like wires all over the place – pure fantasy, and not even a good fantasy. Why not conjure up Heinlein’s deKalb receptors instead? At least those would be somewhat practical.
Here, here. What I don’t get is a sizable fraction of the pubic actually wants these wind up toys. It’s trash. Cars haven’t been a significant source of pollution for at least 20 years, if not longer. The final round of 1970 clean air rules went into effect in 1980. CO HC and NOX were all reduced by 90% by then. For the incremental 10%, we are paying at least $3k more per car. The other 3k is due to enhanced CAFE passed in 2007 by the Democrat congress and signed by Bush 2. That’s bipartisan treason.
Gasoline vehicles are not subsidized to the buyer. The anti-motoring crowd does a lot of creative math to say that. They include the total cost of road transportation and then apply that against only a few select taxes that motorists pay that are earmarked for (but often significantly diverted from) road use. They do not include the multitude of taxes motorists pay on motoring that go to general and other funds.
Automobiles have been exceedingly clean for decades now and the pollution problem was a direct result of the government courts deciding in favor of government’s friends (the polluters). The prove harm rulings. Had they gone appropriately for property rights the pollution would have been at the very least controlled, minimized from the beginning.
What many consider subsidies are big oil’s crony actions and like those of the medical industry big oil aims to keep prices up. However the world wide competition makes theirs a much more difficult task and the result is more of keeping oil prices from collapsing. The expenditures of government tend to keep oil off the world the market and/or in control of big oil. To end user these are double negative subsidies. He’s taxed for them and he pays higher prices.
The robber baron class moved on to social engineering a century ago. The electric car plus smart meters plus a number of other things gives them more control to reach their social engineering goals. Makes society easier to manage.
Hi Mark,
The difference is that conventional cars are economically and functionally viable exclusive of any subsidies – while EVs are not.
This is why IC cars replaced EV cars 100 years ago – and there were no subsidies for IC cars back then.
And the subsidies you reference today are not subsidies of the cars themselves, of their technology – but rather of infrastructure (roads) and fuel.
EVs require subsidization of EVs themselves.
Moreover, roads do not have to be subsidized and could/would exist on a free market/fee-for-use basis. And fuel is actually more expensive than it would be due to government interference.
re this: “Moreover, roads do not have to be subsidized and could/would exist on a free market/fee-for-use basis.”
We already have free market run roads. Go into a store’s parking lot – private roads. Go into a gated housing community. Go into a regular housing development before it’s fully completed – those are private roads, that the local government then takes over via a subtle form of coercion – they offer the developer to take them over for “free”, and then charge the homeowners buying the houses property taxes to maintain the road system. If the developer refuses to turn the roads over, the homeowners still pay the extortion, aka taxes, the same way kids sent to private schools still have their parents paying for the public schools they don’t attend.
There is no way in hell that the oil industry is subsidized to the tune of $6 tril. Even if you count military expenditures, it amounts to no more than a hundred billion annually for the mid east. That said, my view is that we don’t even need to do that. Those Arab mullahs would need to sell their oil because that’s all they have. They couldn’t create a ham sandwich otherwise. $6 Trillion sounds like some bullcrap from the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club or Worldwatch Institute. It’s crap. All of us know it. Every person who drives a car is paying for the roads everyone else can travel on with their gas tax money. A few tax breaks for energy companies is a reasonable idea only because cheap gas is in the national interest. It doesn’t amount to $6 tril, though.
The study you cite is quite fact-free. Indeed, if $5.3 trillion in subsidies (how? cash, fewer regulations, lower taxes, what?) are given out, why do the Big 5 oil companies only show $135 billion in profit?
I had this vision of thousands of cars, motorcycles, and trucks all trundling along the highway with their umbilical cords attached to overhead high-voltage lines, and then one spins out of control, or someone switches lanes or passes another car, or takes an exit or gets a flat tire. The possibilities are endless and comical.
Hi Ross,
Yup. And the salient point Mark forgets is that, as machines, IC cars are functionally and economically viable while EVs are not.
That really isn’t the least bit practical. Peak rush hour would kill the grid in a matter of minutes once your solution scales. It is said that the New York subway wouldn’t exist without the Indian Point nuclear power station. Not to mention there’s a whole lot of ongoing maintenance that takes place with overhead power lines that aren’t touched by anything other than birds. What happens when we drag millions of catenary assemblies, day in and day out, across copper or aluminum cables? Or maybe we could fund another “moonshot” solution using carbon nanotubes and other unobtainium?
The railroad industry uses electric lines when it makes sense, over relatively short distances. Rails are the ideal of your idea, one line, no moving off it except at hard designated locations (under central control), and a metal rail for grounding. Light rail systems use them in much the same way over short distances and mostly due to politics. They only really exist because the capital expense is borne by the taxpayer. There’s a reason why the rails aren’t electrified everywhere and it isn’t because no one has ever thought about it.
The Volt would be a home run if they could make it cost $15,000 less.
Hi Rich,
I think they could sell it for around $28,000 – but they (like Tesla) decided to sex it up, add gadgets… which adds to the price.
But at $28k, the thing isn’t economically insane. Even a guy like me – who lives near not much – could operate it probably 60-75 percent of the time as a pure electric car and so use very little fuel. Before GM excommunicated me, I test drove several of them and was impressed by the fact that I could make it all way “down the mountain” and almost back – a round trip of 60 miles – almost entirely on the batteries.
It is the only electric car I will praise on account of that.
Chevy website: starting at $34,095 AS LOW AS $26,595 AFTER FEDERAL TAX CREDIT.
I guess it is there, if you don’t mind hosing taxpayers for it. But I am guessing, its like every other car, good luck finding one of the base models. But still far from being an economy car, which IMHO shouldn’t be more then $20,000 top of the line. But I guess the Volt is more midsizeish, though not much bigger then the Cruze.
But why is the BOLT more expensive then the Volt? No wonder it doesn’t sell, the few buyers interested in it come in and probably end up taking a Volt just because its less expensive.
The Bolt has a much larger battery and more robust and higher voltage power electronics . So much larger that it overwhelms the minimal cost of the ICE generator/planetary gear set installed in the Volt (an engine it shares with the gas-driven Cruze). Even at it’s higher voltage the Bolt takes longer to charge than the Volt (although both will be charged by morning).
AS LOW AS $26,595 AFTER FEDERAL TAX CREDIT
Rich, a tax credit is great if you have taxable income. Being retired, the credit has no value for me.
Ditto those of us who keep our income below taxable level.
What about the cost of “sexing it up?” We used to laugh at the crazy prices for the premium stereo option and anyone who really wanted decent sound would go after market to get more bang for their buck. The real hard core guys still do but with the infotainment systems highly integrated into the dash it is very hard to make that happen.
But these systems aren’t much more than cell phones. Honda’s in-dash system runs Android, and I suspect so do some of the other systems. So now I have a $500 cell phone in my pocket that is regularly updated, by a company who’s primary business is computer operating systems (at least with Apple), and blows the doors off anything the carmakers have to offer. Speakers and amps can be had for very little money.
Are we ever going to see the day when a carmaker admits their stuff is horrible and just let us use our phones (which we all do anyway) for entertainment?
Might be a topic for a rant.
Hi Ready,
Part of the Volt’s “sexiness” is its effectively four seater layout; it also has a lot of luxury and tech equipment; also – and somewhat like the Tesla but to a lesser degree – it is powerful and sporty. That’s nice, but my bet is that if the shift in emphasis were more toward economy, Chevy could build it with a less expensive battery/motor and that plus keep the features to the necessities – manual AC, for example, rather than climate control – I bet they could build it and sell for around $28k or even less without subsidies.
That would make it cost-competitive with an Accord or Camry to buy but far less expensive to operate.