There won’t be much to review when electric cars replace internal combustion-powered cars. If they replace them. Which will only happen if the government continues to force non-electric cars off the market while forcing EVs onto it.
That – and some kind of UBI/EBT card to subsidize the EV, which most people won’t buy unless someone else does that for them.
Anyhow, what where will there be to write about when everything is the same?
It is hard enough right now, given how homogenized most non-electric cars have become – also courtesy of the government, which forces them to fit the same “safety” and “mileage” (now confused – conflated – with “emissions”) template. It’s why the panels of a BMW look so much like a Hyundai’s – and vice-versa, too. It’s why the BMW and the Hyundai – and the VW and the Mazda and the Mercedes and the GM, too all have 2.0 liter four cylinder engines.
Some of you may remember when a given brand had not only different displacement engines but different types of engines, too. The funneling toward sameness (other than the brand and price) has happened because of the regulations, which largely define what ends up being designed. If the regs say a piece of wood must measure 2×4 you generally end up with nothing but 2x4s.
Especially if 1x4s and 4x4s are effectively prohibited by the regs.
So people have been habituated to sameness. Whether deliberately intended or just an unhappy coincidence, this has made them ready for the electric car, which will bring sameness to a new level.
Other than size and output, can you tell the difference between one battery and another? How about one electric motor vs. another?
Does your internal combustion car’s starter motor turn you on?
Which is just the point. EVs are about many things not mentioned, one of them being to sever the emotional bond people once had with cars, which bond is based on their car not being the same as everyone else’s.
The ancient Ford vs. Chevy thing being an obvious for-instance. Ford guys revere their Ford V8s and consider them superior to Chevy’s V8s. And vice-versa. Both camps can claim superiority based on specific engineering and intangible differences, such as the the sounds made by these different engines.
Can you tell the difference – by sound or otherwise – between a DeWalt and a Makita drill? They both go whirrrrrrrr. Which is fine for drills because they are appliances and one generally doesn’t get emotionally attached to an appliance. Screwing drywall into place is a job – not something you look forward to, tell stories about (unless it went horribly wrong) or do just because.
No one waxes and polishes their cordless drill.
EVs are about making cars into appliances, all the same except for brand and power rating, etc. People will shop for them – using their EV EBT/UBI – in the same way they shop for washing machines.
Size, or color. Price, of course – though that will become a marginal consideration when people aren’t actually paying for their cars anymore – in the manner of the current EBT’er “shopping” for food using other people’s money.
It’s where we’re headed – though not many of us want to go there. That, of course, hardly matters – in the manner of what the cows are thinking about as they’re prodded off the truck, into the feed lot and – eventually – down the chute.
Where they all end up just the same.
. . .
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EV’s can never happen because the laws of physics are literally impossible — noone could survive using an EV. But they know that — they’re just trying to destroy all our infrastructure. I think it’s part of their plan to kill off all humans on planet earth… I actually believe that now as odd as it sounds. The only reason I believe that is because it’s what logic dictates. I’d think it’s nuts if it all didn’t make perfect sense.
They can’t just drop nuke bombs because they don’t want to disturb the environment too much, and they can’t just shoot us in the streets because we have guns (and would acquire military assets) and would fight back so even though they’d kill off alot of us they wouldn’t win the war in the end — they’d lose. So they wage a slow war, this takes alot longer but they don’t mind waiting because they live alot longer than humans so they have more time in their lives to wait, or maybe their children or grandchildren will inherit the earth. The slow war is accomplished by killing us off in any way that they can that’s sneaky & covert — poisons in our food & water, no real health care just perpetuation of curable diseases and hurting people even more, vak-insanes that make us unable to reproduce & make us sick (and dumb) so we don’t live as long, etc. And they try to make us weak in any way they can — making us dumb, making us divided & hate each other & destroying our cultures, taking over our governments to better control & enable their war crimes against humanity, brainwash us all into keeping our dictatorship form of governments so we never organize and work together to be stronger as a civilization, destroying our infrastructure (the whole ‘clean energy’ scam to shut down our power plants & destroy our great power dams etc), taking our guns away, etc. So at some point in the future we’ll all be so weak and dumb and powerless that we won’t be able to fight back when they completely ‘flip the switch’ and round up all the remaining humans. And they don’t want us to know they’re trying to kill us all off because if we all knew that we’d become defensive and thereby their war tactics wouldn’t work on us anymore, so they use every ‘full spectrum warfare’ sneaky covert method they can. And they don’t want us to know they’re space aliens so they use their human double agents as proxies to wage war on us.
Look at what’s going on — all our guv people are agents of global cabals — all they do is crimes against humanity — all the laws they’re constantly desperately trying to pass are part of the war to kill off all humans on planet earth — they’re not really working for us — they’re double agents working for space aliens. We’re living in a real-life sci-fi alien invasion movie.
Hello Eric. I owned several “muscle” cars in my youth and I’ll never understand the attitude that cars are just “transportation”. Unfortunately, the homogenization of the auto industry along with the overly aggressive enforcement of traffic laws to balance local government budgets have made driving pretty boring. The roads have become banal, but the skies can still be fun. The FAA is a regulatory shithole, but there is still lots of “uncontrolled” airspace for speed and adrenaline. Get yourself a pilots license and an experimental airplane like a Vans RV8 while you still can. Having fun while burning lots of petroleum is a great way to tell the social justice wokesters to fuck off.
I’d opt for the RV-7A. Though I have a few hours in taildraggers, I prefer tricycle gear. When I landed that Aeronca 7AC, I was DANCING all over those rudder pedals trying to keep it pointed down the runway…
The only problem with airplanes is that the engines, particularly the certificated ones, is that they’re EXPENSIVE! Just to swap out an O-235 on a 152 will set you back $25K, easy, and it only goes up from there. That’s just for an overhaul! If you go with a brand new engine, you’re talking double that. To re-engine an RV-8, you’re talking SERIOUS money. The spec sheet on Vans’ website calls for 150-210 hp. If you hang a Lycoming IO-360 on your RV-8, you’re talking about $59K for a new engine, $34K for a rebuilt, and about $30K for an overhauled engine.
Unfortunately, given the power requirements for the RV-8, a Rotax engine is out of the question. Their highest rated engine is 140 hp, which is below the minimum called for in the RV-8.
I don’t know WHY aircraft engine prices are so ridiculous, either. It’s not like they’re the high tech wonders found in modern cars and motorcycles. They’re air cooled. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s simpler than liquid cooling, and it reduces weight. Oh, and aircraft engines still use MAGNETOS for goodness sake! There’s nothing wrong with mags; the beauty of mags is that they’re independent of the aircraft electrical system, so even if the aircraft electrical system fails, the engine will still operate. That said, there’s nothing remotely high tech about either air cooling or magneto ignition; they’re decidedly OLD TECH that’s been around for decades. Neither is exotic, so it shouldn’t be priced like an exotic technology. That begs the question: why are aircraft engines RIDICULOUSLY PRICED?
One can understand turbine engines being expensive. They use exotic materials that are machined to exacting tolerances. They operate at high temperatures and pressures. One can understand the high prices of turbine aircraft engines. What I cannot understand is why piston aircraft engines are ridiculously priced. $45K for a brand new engine? GTFOOH!
What might be a more realistic option is a LSA. LSAs can be powered with non-certificated engines, so their prices are merely sky high vs. fucking obscene for a certificated engine. That said, no LSA will hold a candle to an RV-8 in terms of performance. To get RV-8 performance, you’ll need a Lycoming or Continental turning the prop.
Anyway, if it weren’t for the obscene prices of aircraft engines and to a lesser extent, avionics, flying would be a good hobby. I think motorboats are a better way to tell the SJW enviro whackos to fuck off. Not only do boats make noise and burn gas; they’re far less regulated than aircraft… 🙂
Hi Mark (and Giff)!
I have always loved airplanes and aviation. When I was in college, I gave serious thought to trying for the Air Force or Navy but didn’t pursue it because my love of the idea of flying was counterbalanced by my aversion to orders. I knew I would not do well in an environment where I would have to salute and say yes, sir! (I was counseled about this by an older guy I knew; retired Navy pilot. He told me that catapult launches were Big Fun but the rest of the time not so much.)
Also, even then, I felt uneasy about anything connected with government.
I’d love to get into private aviation but as you’ve noted, the cost is simply prohibitive. I think – last time I checked – getting a basic visual license is something like $4,000 – and then you need the airplane. Isn’t it the case that you’re looking at a minimum of around $30k for the aviation equivalent of a 20-year-old Corolla in need of a lot of TLC?
What seems more viable is a home-built/ultralight that I could put together myself and fly off my field. I gather one can do this – assuming one is capable of putting together the craft oneself – for around $15k all in.
That is possibly doable – if this Corona Crap ever ends and the world doesn’t.
Since I expect the latter to happen, I have been investing in other things – such as rehabbing my coop and getting new birds (chickens and ducks) with goats and maybe a few cows hopefully next.
An ultralight would be a great way to go! Even if you got one fully built for you, you’d be all-in for $18-$20K, tops. I thought about getting one too, but I’m not sure if I want to STAY in the US…
Hi Eric,
Same here. I stumbled across Paramotors on Youtube several months ago and this is definitely something I’m considering now. In fact, I don’t think there is a more free expression of flying than these contraptions. And a lot cheaper to get into than planes. Now, you’re not going to go very far but man, these things are about as close to being a bird as possible in my opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo1qRcO1OehgkOD_fHsu_uQ/videos
The post above is attributed to me…apparently wasn’t logged in again.
Sheesh. I’m really bad at interneting tonight. Wrong Youtube link. Here is the link to a Paramotor vid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvQ9DjJNal0
Heh, yeah, I sold a used ultralight for a client a few years ago….it went for somewhere around $5K. Very tempting! And IIRC, none of the onerous over-your-shoulder FAA nonsense which is ridiculously expensive- like routine maintenance and rebuilds by A&P mechanics {How do they even get the darn planes to the supermarket?!)
Hi Nunz,
Us edentulitic hillbillies who have access to fields could do the ultra-light thing pretty easily. But if cost were no object and I had enough field – and runwway -it’d be the duck guts to acquire an He162 Volksjager and buzz the neighbors place with it!
Hey Eric!
I’ve never been too impressed by planes…..but darn, small planes are fun! I’m glad that I didn’t know that client who had the ultralight – he had a sea plane before I knew him, and I would’ve been tempted to go up with him, but the guy’s a maniac- used to fly it under bridges and stuff….. (Hey, he’s still alive at 72 though…).
Years ago while taking a drive on eastern Lawn Guyland, I saw an old WWI-style open cockpit plane flying around…..I HAVE to get a ride in one of those some time before I croak! Can you imagine?!
Nunz,
That’s on my list of flying adventures; the open cockpit plane. They even have outfits that take you up then turn the stick over to you. (after some ground school) I took my father for a ride on a B24 that had the waist gunner windows open so you can stick your head out and get huge whiffs of the Pratt and Whitney’s, not to mention the deafening roar.
Hey William!
T’was just thinking last night that you and Doug have been MIA around here! Was hoping the Cali-Nazis didn’t get yas!
I really have to look into getting a ride in an open cockpit plane before I ditch the Jew-S-A!
You can spend a load of cash to get in the air-or you can do it safely and reliably for a LOT less. I built a Van’s RV9A for around $50K over 13 years. I was able to score a partially assembled airframe kit with a core Lycoming 0-320-H2AD engine-both for $22K. I disassembled the engine, took it to a certified engine shop where they performed an inspection and overhaul on the cylinders (aircraft cylinders have the heads integral to the barrels), inspected the crank, rods and case and supplied me with the parts needed to reassemble it—cost around $5K. I bought a core cam and had it reground, along with the lifters. There are a lot of good used instruments and radios available also–no need to spend tens of thousands on a panel. No need to spend $10K on paint either–leave it bare aluminum or paint or wrap yourself. Electronic fuel injection and ignition saves you 1 gallon per hour and gives better performance than tractor magnetos and primitive one barrel carburetors that the engine originally came with. In automotive terms I get 25 MPG–at 175 MPH…..
As far as the FAA goes–the regulations aren’t particularly onerous to me–most make sense. I have freedom to travel–I can use the same airports that jetliners do, fly into small airports in out of the way places, talk to enroute controllers or blaze my own trail and not say a peep if I don’t feel like it. I am ‘pilot in command’–what I say goes–and with that comes responsibility for the safe outcome of the flight. The FAA acknowleges this fact, and states it in the regs. If I have a problem in the air, any airspace rule can be broken if I need to get down safely. ‘We’ll talk about it on the ground’ is the mantra. To me, private aviation is the last bastion of true freedom with responsibility. YOU assess the risk, YOU reap the reward.
Government. That’s the one word answer why certificated aircraft engines,are so expensive and technologically backward.
“That begs the question: why are aircraft engines RIDICULOUSLY PRICED?”
Because “fuck you” that’s why.
You need a power plant license to work on one. You need approval to sell them. You even have to be “current” as a mechanic.
When I went to A&P school in the 90’s, it took two years, cost thousands, and the books were almost the price of a crate 350.
It was all bullshit.
Do you care that the guy doing an annual on your O-200 powered fixed gear plane MUST know how to repair the gear on a 747?
For any of you who want to learn how to fly, join a glider club. When you move on to powered flight, you won’t shit yourself if you have an engine failure.
A key problem common to EVs and zoning is over-specialization and over-optimization.That is, a block of corporate townhouses/McMansions and a big box store are very, very good at only one thing, and only under certain circumstances. But they’re super fragile in that they’re not adaptable to changes outside of their very narrow uses and circumstances.
They’re good for cube farm dwellers who drive down the highway to jobs in office parks and buy salsa, chicken tenders, dish soap, etc. in big containers, and hang out after work on weekends in casual dining restaurants.
But if you lose your job at the cube farm and want to rent out extra space, fix cars, or sell food for extra income, you can’t do that from your townhouse/McMansion in Brook Manor Dale Mews.
Or if a big box store closes, it’s impossible to retrofit it to even another big box store.
Contrast that to a small town storefront, which can be a general store one year, a cafe the next, and a dentist’s office after that, or a country farmhouse that can be a living space that you can add an addition, office, workshop, or store to.
Same with EVs. They work great on smooth roads in flat areas where the temperature never gets too cold or too hot, where there are enough charging stations, where people don’t drive any great distances, without any heavy loads, and where there are dealers nearby to service them. But on a 40 below night or 110 in the shade day on a deserted road with 4 people and a full load of luggage…well, they’re not so great.
In fact, one of the reasons why the COVID outbreak caused the havoc it did was that too many people, places, and systems were overly optimized and specialized, and thus unable to adapt to changing circumstances.
PS: we Mopar guys think our V8s are better than Ford or Chevy!
Great points, Bryce!
And the thing is: Even in the environments where EVs may be practical, what is the point? They don’t save money, resources, “carbon”(Even if that mattered); They don’t offer more convenience, range, self-sufficiency, durability, retention of value, versatility- but rather less of those things.
If one is not aware of the covert reasons for EV’s existence and propagation, one would have to admit that the only reasons EVs exist, is to be able to say that they exist. Heck, even the McMansion serves at least a temporary purpose by providing a style of life for those (who for some reason) desire to live that way….but the EV serves NO purpose.
This one has nice chrome-like trim in the interior, and a 7.1″ (vs. 6.9″) infotainment screen! -The essence of most car reviews already….
Speaking of electric drills and such….
I built a small back porch on my mother’s place yesterday….. Didn’t even fool with my old cordless circular saw (c.2006)- Instead, I whipped out an extension cord and my even older, corded Skil saw. What a pleasure using a real electric saw again! Not sure if I’ll even bother getting new cordless tools, as I’ve been meaning to do for years….the corded are so much better, and cheaper…and last forever. Maybe I’ll just get an inverter or generator or something, for when I have to do stuff remotely. Darn, it was nice using a REAL tool! As nice as driving a REAL vehicle.
Nunz, don’t forget real power and consistency from a mains powered saw. Or any other tool for that matter. No batteries of short life to deal with.
It’s been said by numerous people that if there are minimum standards (regulations), that’s all you end up with. It’s so true. Its true about anything touched by regulation, which at this point is almost everything.
Just look at real estate zoning as an example of overregulation. One hundred years ago, few places had any zoning to speak of, or any building regulation outside of pretty basic safety and fire etc. You had much more variety of building types and sizes, so it would work for all income levels, even low ones. Local conditions shaped the look (local materials and climate) and feel of a place, and most places had a mix of uses (you could live over your retail store for example).
Most places had a unique look, on photos you could figure out where it was taken. Also a high percentage of the structures built were crafted to last centuries (if basic maintenance was done). The market drove what was built. Most things were built by small businesses and individual people. The irony of it all, the more free-ish market of the late 19th and early 20th century actually created the built look that many urban “planners” still wish existed.
Then zoning happened……..
Most people blame the introduction of cars in the 20th century for how things look today, but most of what people don’t like (or what doesn’t work well) about the built environment is actually the result of zoning.
Yes, cars were going to and did change how the built environment looked for sure. However it was zoning that made how things look and work in most modern American suburbs, and made building the once common structures of the city illegal. For example the courtyard apartment building in Chicago. Very popular type built for decades (1890’s to the 1940’s, the heyday the 1920’s), and still popular for renters for their affordability in spite of not having things like central air. But a new one hasn’t been built since the early 1960’s. Why? Because zoning made building them impossible. Also “granny units”, a two flat, in a mostly single family neighborhood, which aren’t apartment buildings but a second unit often built over the garage off the alley, in an attic or daylight basement or sometimes an older house that was moved to the rear of the lot to allow for a new (nicer or bigger) home to be built on the front part. Or that corner store or office in a mostly residential area. All stopped not because they weren’t popular (sometimes because they WERE), but because they were made illegal.
In the suburbs you get the vinyl sided look alike, sized and income level single family house on same sized lots. They all look the same whether they are in Illinois, South Carolina or Utah. Forget about having a second rental unit in the back, and forget about most home based businesses. Retail in long strips with parking lots in front on overcrowded busy streets. About the same basic layout no matter where you are. Most things are now built by large corporations rather than individual people because you need deep pockets to develop real estate today.
Not because people got lots of cars, but all because of zoning regulations. My late grandfather managed to add a three car garage (yes 3) to his urban house in the 1940’s. You couldn’t do that today at that house. Busy bodies think they know better than the person that owns the property, and it is galling.
Zoning is often sold as something that will help real estate hold it’s value, but I would argue it does the opposite at times. It makes it hard for an area to adapt when things change. Take Gary, Indiana for example. The real estate sells for less than it did during the 1950’s (yes really!). Why? Because the “planners” still expect the same use of the real estate that once existed. But that use vanished in the 1970’s and will never return. So in spite of being located in a center of transportation for the whole USA, it has little value because you can do very little with it. So it sits and rots away. Just look at what is happening with hundreds of malls nationwide, same problem.
Zoning prohibits most types of buildings and standardizes the remaining ones.
When nothing but “electric car go brrrrr” EVs are on offer, only in vintage vehicles will climate-destroying [/sarc] IC engines be found.
On that subject, the Hagerty Market Index of classic cars dropped 1.9% in June from May. It is now down 11.8% from a year ago, and 26% from the all-time high in August 2015. That’s a pretty ugly drop.
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/06/15/classic-cars-as-asset-class-get-hit-high-end-prices-hit-hardest/
All is not lost, though. Hagerty’s Affordable Classics subindex (1950s through 1970s, under $40K) just keeps motoring uphill, so to speak.
Distinctly missing from Hagerty’s index is a Classic Truck component. Nobody imagined in the late Sixties, when workaday Chevy C10 pickups and VW microbuses were omnipresent, that they would command handsome prices today.
Will any of the utilitarian, lookalike vehicles of 2020 be prized in 2050? Probably not, if most folks get around in on-demand, self-driving EV taxi fleets by then.
It used to be pretty on the Eastern Shore
Now it’s more New York down to Baltimore
It took so much effort just to move this train
Why does everything around me have to look the same?
— Scott Miller and the Commonwealth, “Amtrak Crescent”
Relax, Eric. In writing your future EV reviews, you’ll just have to learn to wax poetic about the pretty the color of the paint.
The ratchet effect is ratcheting up. Like Batman and Robin trapped in a room with walls that ever encroach inward, we are being squeezed into infinite Bolshevism. Will we escape to fight the villains another day? Stay tuned to the same bat channel at the same bat time…
“Limited range” of electric vehicles is a “feature”, not a “bug”. The bunny hugger environmentalists HATE the idea of us mundanes having the ability to go where we want when we want. If and when electric vehicles are mandated, we will be stuck on buses and trains if we want to go anywhere exceeding a minimal distance.
Speaking of the total submission to the fatwas by auto makers, my son owns a Chevy Tahoe, what year I don’t know. Two nights ago, his wife was driving out to my house and hit deer on a dual lane highway, driving about 75 mph. $20,000 damage! It looked like it had hit a telephone pole. I have hit a number of deer in my life, several with pick up t years ago, I hit one with a rucks, and most of the time damage was minimal, and never near the level I just witnessed. In fact, about 8 years ago, I hit one with a 2006 MX5 doing about 60 mph, and you had to stop and actually look at the car to notice the damage. I can only attribute this to the ongoing decline in structural integrity to save weight, and so fuel consumption. And perhaps the design compromise to make it safe for pedestrians to be hit by a motor vehicle, also mandated by the Psychopaths In Charge. And, it tripped the air bags, another mandate. Gee, I wonder why insurance rates keep going up. So, not only are cars being made so homogeneous as to make them boring as hell, they are also being made extremely expensive to operate, even if they happen to be EVs. The Psychopaths In Charge apparently want us all walking, riding bicycles, or riding on their public transport. Makes us much easier to keep track of, and to catch us.