The Novelty Factor

When people get bored, they want something new. People are bored with new cars. This is understandable as they’re increasingly fundamentally the same.

Not in terms of color or size but functionally. There’s just not that much difference anymore.

The things that used to differ a great deal between makes and models and which separated and defined them beyond the badge and price no longer do. Like ride and handling, for instance. There used to be a great deal of difference between say a Cadillac and a BMW or Mercedes.

There isn’t anymore.

Cadillacs – when they were still American luxury cars and not trying to be American-badged European luxury-sport cars –  rode like sofas and were kitted out like living rooms, both desirable attributes if you don’t care about Nurburgring lap times but do care about comfort.

Today’s cars all ride and handle along the same luxury-sport spectrum, varying only slightly unless you’re really moving – and almost no one does that anymore for reasons of being beaten down and being afraid of a beat down. Creeping from one light to the next is pretty much the same in any air-conditioned, automatic-transmissioned whatever it happens to be.

Might well check email (which is why many new cars have WiFi).

Brand-specific engines used to be another point o departure.

A Ford small-block V8 sounded distinctly different from a big-cube Pontiac; each delivered its power differently, too. On was a low-end master of tire-melting torque; the other a high-RPM soprano.

Each appealed to different passions – and those passions justified buying one rather than the other, depending on which appealed to you more.

How many new cars today – regardless of make or model – are powered by a 2.0 liter turbocharged four cylinder engine? Probably a third or more of the vehicles on the market. They’re not exactly the same engines. But they’re close enough that it makes little difference which brand you end up with. Can you tll the difference between an Audi 2.0 liter turbo and a BMW 2.0 turbo four and a Mercedes 2.0 liter turbo four?

It’s akin to the difference between a Makita and a DeWalt drill.

Which, I think, explains the interest in electric cars, even to the extent of overlooking their many deficits . . .  for the moment.

They are even more the same, of course – one electric motor being pretty much the same as any other electric motor. But they are also fundamentally different than the cars people are used to and have become bored with.

EVs are a novelty.

Most people have not actually driven an electric car. Many have yet to see one in person.

And this newness – this tinge of the exotic – excites them, in the same way that the prospect of traveling to a new place or meeting a provocative new person might – as opposed to something they’ve not only gotten used to but have become bored with.

And people are very bored with cars.

With justification.

After more than 100 years of refinement, their major flaws had been largely eliminated by the  1990s – thirty years ago.

No more hard starting or stalling. No quirks.

But in the process, they became uninteresting; increasingly lacking in distinctiveness or personality – which was sometimes a function of recalcitrance or even poor design.

Before the ‘0s, it was often necessary to know a “trick” to get the thing to start; sometimes a kick would do the trick. Certain brands had a habit of overheating. Or their electrical systems did odd and intermittent things.

And didn’t do the things they were supposed to.

Having a rear-engined (and air-cooled car) or a three-on-the-tree was something not run-of-the-mill.

When cars still had carburetors, some emitted a very distinctive moan as the secondaries opened up. An engine fed by a Holley sounded different than one fed by a Quadrajet  . . . or a pair of Carter AFBs.

There was a procedure for setting the choke. People took pride in knowing how and explaining the procedure when called upon.

Today, there’s a plastic cover over a bunch of wires and plugged-in harnesses and other impenetrables.

Not even worth raising the hood.

You could tinker with cars once upon a time, too – and in this way make them your own. It’s still possible to make changes today, but in a much more homogenized way. Everything has to be matched and coordinated to work with the computer and set up for that specific car, its year and package of equipment as it came from the factory. You can’t just drop an engine from say a Hellcat into your factory V6 Charger… not without dropping in everything else, at any rate. It’s easier – and definitely cheaper – to just buy the prepackaged Hellcat.

Very few new cars even offer a manual transmission anymore – and electronics increasingly “assist” with everything.

Electric cars are intriguing to people because they are something new and that is exciting and analogous to what the first IC cars were in relation to the horse and buggy at the turn of the 19th century.

People were tired of the horse and buggy.

As they are bored with the cars of today.

The irony, of course, is that today’s cars are boring because of the homogenizing pressure brought to bear by the government and Safety Cult – which are the entities hard-selling the EV as the replacement for today’s cars.

There is no question that emissions and fuel efficiency regulations have made today’s cars more reliable – as a side-effect of reducing emissions and increasing fuel economy.

But the regs have also made them generic appliances and sucked the life out of them – made them so perfect that they have become uninteresting – like one after another plastic display window fembots –  something attested to by the piling on of every electronic gadget conceivable, as a way to gin up some momentary interest in them, which fades almost as soon as the apps need their first update.

Of course, the electric car is the ultimate gadget – and it is fascinating to most people precisely because they have no real experience of one, yet. They hear all about Ludicrous Speed and silent running and their curiosity is piqued.

The reality – which they’ll come to know soon enough – will be disappointing and not just because of the choking expense and stifling limitations imposed by their limited range and the time (and planning around) involved in recharging them.

EVs are even more homogenous than today’s non-electric cars. There is practically nothing to distinguish one from another except the size of the electric motor, the range of the battery pack – and the size of the touchscreen inside.

People will have even less interest in driving – or even buying – an EV  because they’ll get bored even faster as there’s almost nothing to do behind the wheel of an EV except turn the wheel and push on the “gas.”

When the novelty wears off, they’ll just want to take a nap instead.

And can you blame them?

. . .

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