Video Rant: 2018 Mercedes GLC350e

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Here’s a look at the pros and cons of plug-in hybrids and why all of sudden so many car companies are putting them in their lineups. You’d think we were running out of gas or something!

 

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Eric,
    Very nice Vlog, which brings up many legitimate issues. What the utopians will keep doing, however, is to try and convince everyone on an individual level that this is feasible individually. Well this is all fine IF you are the only one driving, and IF the world revolves around you, which it doesn’t. One thing I definitely don’t see happening in this society is this: People stopping and plugging in their cars nearly everywhere they visit, shop, etc. Suppose everyone were told they had to merely jump-start their existing car each time they drove it? Wouldn’t that save the environment be eliminating the hazardous waste of millions of car batteries? Can you even begin to imagine the riots if cops went around removing car batteries by “legal proclamation”? And what if someone unplugs your EV when you turn your back? Think that won’t happen, especially if outlets are scarce? Go to church, a family reunion, a movie, or just stop by to see your pals for an hour. You gonna bother to whip out your cord and find an outlet? I can just see it now, 500 power cords snaked all over the parking lots! Start pestering your friends to have cords and outlets for anyone who visits, and see what happens to your friends. This is a wire-less instant-go-on-demand culture. All this waiting and playing with charging cords, finding outlets, competing for ones that exist, IT WON’T FLY. I.C. automobiles still, after over 100 years, give people unparalleled flexibility, versatility, and FREEDOM to do go where they want, when they want, for however long they want, carrying, or not carrying whatever they want. Potential electric energy cannot be carried with you efficiently, nor in any great quantity to even hope to come close to the capabilities and FREEDOM of the I.C. engine. Electric cars lost the contest over 100 years ago, for these reasons alone, NOT because they were not possible, or affordable, or similar in size and shape. Ultimately a product with LIMITED USEFULNESS does not survive beyond a curiosity or an expensive toy! The I.C. engine built this society and culture of today over a period of more than 100 years. A tethered automobile with limited range and very inconvenient refuling capabilities is not going to “take over” in 5, 10, or 25 years, not without being forced down everyone’s throat at gunpoint, or pen-point, as our current government is attempting to do.
    Whatever happened to all that “free” geothermal energy society was supposed have by now anyway?
    In 1978 the entire Chesapeake Bay FROZE OVER! We were all supposed to be living in igloos by now, were we not? Maybe the government opened up a secret “continental geothermal warming vent” and saved us, but created “global warming” in the process, and that’s why it has to be kept a secret! Sounds about as believable to me as what the “practical application” of EVs is going to look like, too! Wait until they tell you what you’re going to have to go through to use the damn thing in freezing weather, bet they haven’t mentioned THAT little tidbit yet, have they?

    • Electric cars could win in the market. After zero point energy becomes a mass market reality. It is extremely unlikely to achieve with chemical batteries.

      • Firstly, EVs must fulfill a need (other than someone else’s agenda) that cannot be met by any other means, and generally with multiple advantages, rather than handicaps. I’m still waiting to see the “perpetual motion” machine every idiot claims they have invented, to appear. Until any of those things materialize, the rest is just expensive bragging at the fence. Advertising usually means said product is not in as great of a demand as the ads would have you believe, and that which must be forced upon people at gunpoint, presumably is neither wanted, nor needed.

      • Hi Brent,

        Zero point energy might not be necessary! Imagine a very light electric car; something like Nissan Leaf but have the weight because it didn’t have to comply with all the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety mandates.

        Now you’d be talking, maybe.

        Because you’d probably get twice the range and the car would cost a third to half as much.

        Recharging, of course, remains a huge problem.

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