Cadillac has been losing sales and market position for the past three years straight, but thinks it has The Answer.
Want to guess?
If you said electrification, go to the head of the class. It’s the obvious answer, though. As the Lemmings rush toward the cliff, GM wants to be in the lead.
Cadillac head Mark Reuss thinks people will buy Cadillacs if they don’t have engines. Or at least, if they also have batteries (i.e., are hybrids). Because as everyone knows, luxury car buyers are absolutely frantic about the gas mileage delivered by their vehicles and also clamoring for a car that goes half as far and takes five times as long to get going again, the speciality de la Maison of electric cars.
“We’ve got one chance. This is it,” Reuss told Automotive News last week. “We will leave nothing on the table, but we’ve got to get there. … We’re going to get there.”
But where is that, exactly?
EVs constitute about 1 percent of total car sales. Let’s say that rises to 10 percent – via production quotas. GM will need to capture pretty much all of it to even begin to make up for the losses it has already suffered.
And every sale will still be a loss – because no one has figured out how to make money on electric cars.
Money is transferred – from the taxpayer, via the government – to the manufacturer and the buyer. But that is not economically sustainable. If it is economically sustainable, then Huey Long was right and it’s time for an electrified chicken in every pot, paid for by everyone sticking his paw (via the government) into his neighbor’s pockets. It brings to mind that scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the movie starring Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid, where Quad’s character goes shopping with Chase’s character’s wallet and urges him to “pick something real nice” for himself.
In the inbred, insular world of the upper echelons of GM – which moved its Cadillac headquarters to New York City, where most people don’t need to drive and therefore generally don’t own cars, let alone Cadillac cars – this is considered rational thinking.
It is so considered because the upper tiers of GM management (and it’s not just GM) swim among the like-minded, who no longer have a clue what the real world is like nor seem very interested in learning about it.
They are like the peddlers of Toxic Masculinity and Diversity (which GM is, too) and take it as a given thing that everyone out there agrees with their views and if not, well they’ll be dragged along.
The difference here is that GM (like Gillette, which is no longer the “best a man can get”) hasn’t got the power to force those people to buy its products – and many have decided not to.
More will.
Attempting to peddle electric cars isn’t going to work for the same reason that Nancy Pelosi isn’t going to take down the wall around her house or remove the armed security detail which protects her.
Electric cars are a loser.
They are a Potemkin Village on wheels, a facade that will come down once the rickety framework of government mandates and subsidies which supports them disappears and even if not for the simple reason that they are not economically sustainable. You cannot make money selling things at a loss – and if you insist on trying, after awhile, you will no longer be in business. Instead of losing the market, their place.
And because people (most of them) cannot afford to spend 30-40 percent more for a new car, even if they want to virtue signal – and don’t mind going half as far and waiting six times as long to get going again.
Reality eventually bites.
So what will happen is GM will build a fleet of EVs that don’t sell – like previous GM EVs, which all failed and had to be pulled.
And Cadillac will be the first lemming to leap – joyously, perhaps – over the edge of the cliff.
. . .
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“The only nukes attempted to be built in the US required Billions of Public loan guarantees to break ground and are 10 years behind schedule and 3X over budget.”
The mountain of government regulations increases the cost building a nuclear power plant by a factor five and increases the amount of time required to build one by a factor of ten. The solution is to get the government out of the business of all power production.
Pat B says:
***”Nuclear power is the most socialized power source. The french run a 100% socialized state sector for electricity. The only nukes attempted to be built in the US required Billions of Public loan guarantees to break ground and are 10 years behind schedule and 3X over budget.
The only countries building nukes of significance are Russia and China.”***
CONGRATULATIONS, PAT B!!!!!!!!
For ONCE, you said something that is accurate, sensible, and with which I can agree!
I nearly fainted.
With the amount of excrement being spewed from that particular hole, it’s probably just random chance. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
HiJason,
Amen. Have you noticed the pattern? These Clovers are immune to facts, contemptuous of logic and reason. The original/eponymous Clover is a dead ringer for “Pat.” Could be the same people. This is why I refer to them all generically.
Because they’re interchangeable.
Like they all came from the same factory… which in a way, they do.
Government schools.
Confucius say: State monkeys all get banana oil from same place!
(If my post congratulating Pat appears multiple times, it’s because there seemed to be a glitch when I was posting, and I had to post about 5 times, and it still wasn’t showing up)
And Jason? I was actually going to make the ‘broken clock’ comment in that post…I just figured that it wouldn’t be appropriate, since it’s unlikely that Pat’ll be right TWICE in the same day…or even century.)
A broken digital clock is never right. Perhaps that old canard about the broken clock being right twice a day needs to end since most clocks and watches are digital, especially if the clocks on the computers are included in the count.
Depends on how it’s broken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-id_Y6QZMg
AHAhahaha! Good’un, Brian!
I’d say with Pat B., it’s more of a power failure….no display!
And someone removed the time chip and swapped in a random number generator…..
Pat B says:
***”Nuclear power is the most socialized power source. The french run a 100% socialized state sector for electricity. The only nukes attempted to be built in the US required Billions of Public loan guarantees to break ground and are 10 years behind schedule and 3X over budget.
The only countries building nukes of significance are Russia and China.”***
CONGRATULATIONS, PAT B!!!!!!!!
For ONCE, you said something that is accurate, sensible, and with which I can agree!
I nearly fainted.
“What “tax incentives” for SUVs? No such things exist.”
Only vehicles over 10,000 lbs are eligible for Bonus depreciation…
“Heavy” SUVs, pickups, and vans used over 50% for business are eligible for the first-year Section 179 depreciation write-off in the year they are first put to business use. In addition, new heavy vehicles are eligible for first-year bonus depreciation.
“Example 1
Before the end of the year, you buy a new $45,000 heavy SUV and use it 100% in your sole proprietorship business. Your first-year depreciation deduction is $37,000: $25,000 Section 179 deduction + $10,000 first-year bonus depreciation deduction [50% x ($45,000 – $25,000)] + $2,000 “regular” depreciation deduction [20% x ($45,000 – $25,000 – $10,000)].
The $37,000 in write-offs will reduce your federal income tax bill and your self-employment tax bill too. You may get a healthy state income tax deduction too, although some states have refused to go along with the super-generous depreciation rules enacted by the federal government.
In contrast, if you buy a new $45,000 sedan and use it 100% for business, your first-year depreciation write-off will be only $11,160. For a new $45,000 light truck or light van, your first-year write-off would be only $11,560.”
Perhaps you were unaware of the Bush Era Bonus depreciation for heavy SUVs?
Try studying observable reality. It may help you.
Clover,
Apples and oranges – first of all.
The heavy trucks you mention (2500 series and larger) are not subsidized; EVs are. You are describing a business deduction – which is a different thing. These trucks would continue to sell – at a profit – absent any business deduction. Because they are hugely profitable – and because there is real market demand for them.
No money is taken from my pocket to fund the manufacture or sale of trucks.
EVs are being manufactured almost entirely because of mandates – and their “sale” depends on massive subsidies.
You keep writing about “reality” – as if that trumps right vs. wrong. It doesn’t, Clover. It’s just a weak attempt to avoid dealing with right vs. wrong.
Like so many products of government schooling, you have real trouble thinking in terms of principles and concepts; your worldview is blinkered and situational; your morality subjective and solipsistic. You feel and believe. And you evade/avoid/blank out any line of thinking which might cause you to have to deal with the thuggery by proxy you advocate.
Example: You rail against blacks having been enslaved, but advocate the use of force to take the product of other people’s labor to benefit yourself, the essence of slavery as a concept. And after railing against those you style “racist,” you call people – white people -“hicks” and “rednecks” and then deride anyone who lives in he country as a troglodyte.
It’d be funny were it not so tragic.
Once again: I am not opposed to electric cars. I am opposed to being mulcted to finance the manufacturer and “sale” of expensive toys for the virtue-signaling affluent.
…
You’re still bringing a rubber knife to a gun fight!
“The heavy trucks you mention (2500 series and larger) are not subsidized; EVs are. You are describing a business deduction – which is a different thing. These trucks would continue to sell – at a profit – absent any business deduction. ”
Not relative to sedans…
If Heavy trucks were really solving a key market problem they wouldn’t need a special
tax incentive relative to Light trucks or sedans.
Clover,
Your comments once again betray embarrassing ignorance about the car business. Trucks and SUVs are the most profitable vehicles for any car company.
It’s why they make them, you see – even to the extent of cancelling passenger car models to make room in their lineups for more of them.
Manufacturer incentives are used sometimes to increase sales at the end of a quarter (to bump up numbers over a rival, as in the case of the Ford F-truck vs. the Chevy Silverado) but are not necessary to make these vehicle lines profitable. Even when someone gets a $10,000 discount off the MSRP of a truck, there’s still profit margin left. That’s how much money they make on these things.
You’re simply wrong on the facts – again.
Also, the fact that – unlike EVs – these vehicles do not depend on government production mandates and subsidization of sales with tax dollars to prop them up.
Pat, Tesla Motors is working on an electric semi truck. It will be eligible for the same business deduction. The business deduction for heavier trucks does not require the truck be powered by hydrocarbon fuels. It could be powered by batteries or unicorn farts it doesn’t matter. You may object to that carve out but it is universal and thus at least fair across all options.
“We’ve got one chance. This is it,” Reuss told Automotive News last week. “We will leave nothing on the table, but we’ve got to get there. … We’re going to get there.” This makes aboslutely no sense. When someone goes “all in” he puts everything on the table. I think the trutch is, they are taking everything “off” the table, and moving on to the next table and clearing it, as well. Funny thing is, when crooks are under duress, they will actually tell you precisely what their intentions are, and try to make you believe you are hjearing what you want. This guy should be selling sand to the AyRabs.
right on GTC. I believe they have already made a deal with Uncle.
Clover wrote:
“Meanwhile I’m going to go back to patent work in the field.”
Great comments, nice long and lively thread.
But the bottom line is simple: Clover’s hostility toward Eric is based simply on the fact that he’s throwing the wet blanket of truth on his/her Elon Musk Jr. wet dreams.
And nothing infuriates a prog more than a dose of reality.
Hi AF,
Clover went silent, stopped attempting to respond to the factual objections I raised – especially the ur fact about EVs being utterly dependent on mandates and subsidies, which fact undermines every argument in favor of EVs as anything other than subsidized failures.
I also got tired of dealing with a person who accuses others of “racism” – while calling others “hicks” and “rednecks.”
The cognitive dissonance is halting.
Guys like that tend to scatter away like cockroaches from a flashlight when they can’t come up with facts to back their positions, particularly when their knee-jerk ad hominem attacks and accusations of racism/nazism don’t make their opponents back down.
Eric
Your whining about Mandates is whining about reality.
It’s such tedium listening to people who can quote “The Fountainhead” whinge
on about the cruelty of reality.
I don’t hear you whine about Unleaded gas… Remember, that was a “Mandate”.
I don’t hear you whining about how it’s unfair Farm Diesel is untaxed…
How about you go to Iowa and tell Iowa Farmers to stop demanding Ethanol gas?
You can Stand up during a town hall over the next year and
explain how E-10 gas is a terrible mandate and only awful
takers want that….
Clover,
Since you can’t defend mandates on moral grounds – because they’re indefensible on moral grounds – you eruct a non sequitur about “reality.”
Well, Clover enslaving blacks (your pretended third rail) was also once “reality,” too. Does that mean everyone should have just accepted it?
The above is what’s known as a logical argument; the use of a principle to make a point. It is something you seem unable to comprehend.
It gets tedious dealing with people who bring rubber knives to gun fights.
Eric, you’re wasting your time with that maroon. He/she/it is a typical wibble-wobbling self-styled “progressive” that bounces around from one ludicrous position to another with no reason, logic, or common sense – let alone any moral sense.
You’d have better luck having a rational discussion with one of your cats.
“Since you can’t defend mandates on moral grounds – because they’re indefensible on moral grounds”
Eric, do you know what an externality is?
Mandates are routinely used to resolve externalities.
Mandates are also routinely used for efficiency reasons.
Do you find traffic lights to be immoral?
Yes, Clover – I do know what an “externality” is.
And I know you haven’t defined it, with regard to EVs. Probably because you are aware how easy it would be to quantify the fatuity. Do you mean emissions? Of what, exactly – and how much? New IC cars are nearly pollution-free, in terms of the things which actually do cause “externalities” – e.g., smog and health problems. You will probably trot out the C02 canard. Leaving aside the “climate change” nonsense – the dishonest “science” and hyped hysteria – the fact is that EVs depend on electricity and the majority of the generating capacity in the US is coal/oil/natural gas, all of which “emits” C02 and lots of it. This leaves aside the effrontery of forcing ordinary people to subsidize electric luxury-sports cars for the affluent.
In re traffic lights: They often reduce efficiency by interrupting what could have been the smooth flow of traffic… with the “externality” being wasted time and excess energy consumed.
“New IC cars are nearly pollution-free, in terms of the things which actually do cause “externalities” – e.g., smog and health problems.”
I would propose you prove your assertion.
Take any new car, park it in a closed garage, start it up with a full tank of fuel and lock yourself inside
with a bottle of whiskey. Don’t leave until you have finished the bottle. Shouldn’t cause you any health problems.
Clover,
Once again, you reveal that you either don’t know much about the issue at hand or are being purposefully evasive.
The issue you brought up – undefined “externalities” – was defined by me as the vehicle exhaust emissions which can affect air quality (i.e., create or worsen smog) or potentially harm human health. This is the only morally relevant “externality” – but as the saying goes, it’s the dose that makes the poison.
These exhaust byproducts have been so effectively controlled (or converted into harmless compounds like water vapor and C02 through catalytic reaction) that, as regards new and recent vintage IC cars they are an irrelevance as regards things such as smog and harm to human health.
And that is why a new bogeyman – C02 and “climate change” – had to be trotted out. But it’s at best a grossly exaggerated, dishonestly presented fraud which counts on the laziness, ignorance and susceptibility to fear-mongering which addles all too many people.
Your “closed garage” diagram is as fatuous as me urging you to crack open an EV battery case and drink or inhale the contents.
It’s funny how “externalities” only exist selectively. I noticed this many years ago.
In this case nobody considers the externalities of mining the minerals for the batteries and such. They are so considerable that domestic US mines had to shut down because of the regulations to mitigate those “externalities”. Since the materials come from China now nobody seems to care or count those.
Then there is the externality that the electric car’s contribution to pollution is outside the cities where they are used.
The great thing about the EVs is that they externalize all the externalities to other people.
Brilliant riposte, Brent – thank you, sir!
“The great thing about the EVs is that they externalize all the externalities to other people.”
excellent !!
Oh, I know, Pat, right?!
It was like in the 80’s, when everyone was whining about Apartheid! It was just reality! Why couldn’t they just accept it?!
I don’t know why they call them ‘progressives’, when their ideas and behaviors are clearly REGRESSIVE, as amply demonstrated by Pat.
I refer to them as “self-styled progressives” since it’s an honorific they bestowed upon themselves. I sure as hell don’t see anything they want to do as being within any reasonable definition of “progress”.
Hey Nunzio,
Progressives saw the ideal society not as a group of individuals, voluntarily pursuing their own ends, but as a greater machine into which individuals were called upon to serve. In this machine, the elite declared themselves to be “natural” leaders, tasked with dictating the appropriate role played by all others. This elite correctly viewed the classical liberal values of individual sovereignty and responsibility inimical to the progress of the machine. Progressives are, and always have been, authoritarian collectivists. “Progress”, for them, is properly defined by the level of control they exert over the machine.
Interestingly, the modern, race obsessed elements of the alt-right are channeling the early progressives, many of whom were virulently racist and open advocates of eugenics. Ironically, the “intellectual” roots of this movement are neither conservative nor libertarian, but “progressive”.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Evenin’ Jeremy!
….or, to put it in more general terms: “Progressivism” is just the current euphemism for communism/socialism/any form of coerced collectivism.
And so true about the racism- only now, the straight white masculine males are now the objects of that racism.
Funny too, that these people are the ones who now champion abortion, such as has recently been strengthened and extended in NY to the point of literal infanticide in NY- when in-fact, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a virulent racist whose objective in founding that cause was to reduce the birthrate among MINORITIES!
And also of note is how these progressives support a political philosophy which, everywhere it has been practiced, has resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
No wonder these ‘progressives’ can not tolerate facts; they can use all of the euphemisms, and politically-correct speech, and pithy platitudes of advancing ‘the people’, but such can not hide the misery, poverty, and death that the philosophy which they advocate and work for has caused throughout the world for the last century.
These people are the enemies of humanity- so it is no surprise that they would advocate the enslavement of humanity on a mass scale, by what ever means necessary to accomplish it; and that they so despise the most basic right of any human to be left alone to live their life on this earth as they choose to, and to reap the natural consequences and rewards of doing so.
They’d rather play God- as long as they get to be the ones who can claim omniscience and omnipotence, while freeing themselves to not have to answer to anyone for the choices they make over the lives of others- down to the very matter over who lives and who dies- although they have not created mankind nor the earth..
Disgusting, isn’t it? Talk about hypocrisy! They would rob every man of the right to rule over himself and his own, while they seek to rule over those who have no obligation tov them, other than the misfortune of having been born into the world and in a jurisdiction over which these creeps have violently established power.
Hey Nunz,
Progress for a “progressive” is measured by the amount of control they exert over society; the “deaths of millions of people” is trivial compared to the “perfection” of society. Get with it man!
Cheers,
Jeremy
Ha! Yeah, Jeremy, they’re just ‘getting rid of the people who are preventing them from establishing utopia’!
Of course, if the ones who are trying to violently impose their version of ‘utopia’ on everyone else would just commit suicide, we might come a little closer to actually having that utopia- at least for those of us who leave others in peace, and actually pursue the things that matter to us individually…..
I read a book many years ago- I think it was The Story Of Utopias by Lewis Mumford- It amazed me, how over and over again, people always seem to believe that they can establish a universal utopia by controlling others to a great degree; using violence; and forcing all to conform to one particular economy; way of life; value system; etc. -as if humans are nothing more than rats who will be happy and peaceful as long as some basic physical needs are met…..and that none will mind giving up their own autonomy and individual pursuits for the collective- or if they do, then they are deemed worthy of elimination.
Once again it boils down to the saying I came up with: The problem with a collective is that someone has to run it.
Utopia is achieved when everyone governs himself and does not impose upon others involuntarily. In other words it is the absence of any controlling force. It’s when people grasp, embrace, and practice live and let live.
I’d say it’s also more likely he’s gone back to flipping burgers rather than “patent work” – except that flipping burgers is honest, productive work. The clover in question is most likely a gunvermin paper-pusher who feels perfectly justified in living off the sweat and toil of his neighbors.
Jason, I think you are correct about the burger flipping- ….in one of those commie places like NY with a $15/hr. ‘minimum-wage’ that makes unskilled lazy nincompoops “equal” to productive people who give a damn and actually acquire a marketable skill and learn the habits that make one competitive in the labor market, instead of relying upon robbery by proxy from business owners!
[Way way way off-topic]
Hey Eric,
Did you hear that comrade Andrew Cuomo is celebrating a ‘victory’ of his NY signing into law a bill that allows abortion up until BIRTH- and that if the sprog comes out alive, they can KILL it!
While I don’t think such matters are any bidness of the government (actually, nothing is rightly any business of the government, because gov’t is illegitimate- like most of the sprogs they advocate killing)…it’s pretty darn sick that they endorse, enable and promote [and even force us to fund] this crap!!!!
Cuomo had said back in 2014 “Conservatives are not welcome here[NY]….” and something to the effect that “if you’re conservative, you need to leave”! Ha! I beat him to it, having extricated myself from that filthy dictatorship in ’01. (And would that it could have been sooner!).
As this crap spreads [The attitude, in addition to the specifics and legislation), as everything which starts in NY or CA spreads like cancer to the rest of the country, how long before we see the same everywhere? This stuff will likely start steamrolling after the next commie is elected in 2020.
Disgusting filth. I’m literally out of words.
Just utterly disgusting, reprehensible, evil, devil-spawned, filthy, awful, barbaric, monstrous violation of all morality and decency. You know, I usually try to keep discussions from reaching the Godwin point, but whoever said this legislation created a new Auschwitz was on the right track.
Reminds me of when the “baby chop shop” videos first surfaced. The videos just went to CONgress, which promptly slapped a gag order on the videographers and then stalled around trying to make sure the videos weren’t “edited” until everyone forgot the whole thing. If we still had the same spirit that motivated us to break from England in the first place, every Planned Parenthood in the country would have been on fire within the hour.
Abortionists are some of the most disgusting people in the world. Remember that one who was quoted describing, apparently with some enjoyment, the tactile sensations of killing an unborn child in the womb… how did NO ONE in that room become so sick to their stomach, so violently angry, that they had no choice but to rise from their chair and beat him like a practice dummy? Why is this utter, unbridled evil being allowed to exist?
Amen, Chuck.
I’ve always been of the opinion that such things, while wrong, are not any of the government’s business- as by injecting itself in intimate matters involving people’s bodies, seed, and children, via regulation, be it prohibition or promotion, it constitutes the ultimate trespass against personal sovereignty/privacy/right to be left alone, etc. (And hey, if the wicked want to kill off their progeny…they’re doing us a favor by not reproducing their own kind)
But by promoting and cheering abortion; and cracking open the door to what essentially amounts to the beginnings of state-sponsored infanticide, NY has gone beyond the evils of Nazi Germany.
And what bothers just as much, but seems to have been glossed over for the past 5 years since it was uttered, as I had never heard it before, is Comrade Cuomo’s statement that conservatives are not welcome in NY [Not that any would want to stay in that filthy place!]- which is basically just one step away from the establishment of a religion [All it lacks is official legislation decreeing it].
What Cuomo is literally saying, is that NY is only for people of certain values/beliefs/viewpoints/worldviews. If the tables were reversed, and some Southern pol said the opposite about his own state, he’d probably be executed- and we’d never hear the end of it in the media and from the libtards.
There are times when abortion is needed for the fetuses sake or the mother. But laws like that will be enforced on those unable to defend themselves against it……as always.
One reason for the growing MGTOW is the government intrusion into personal life with men knowing ahead of time they’ll get the short end of any “stick” that arises and there mostly wouldn’t be a “stick” without government.
On “Wild Kingdom” the male animals are displayed as willing do anything to mate and feminism and stuff related to it thus thinks male humans are like that too. But humans aren’t like that. male humans have a rational risk/reward mechanism. Well at least many do. Thus there is a market distribution of what men will put up with or do. For some men it is very little and for some others a lot. The further the cost and risk is pushed up the more men in the distribution fall under the threshold.
It’s as if I were selling a car with certain features, quality level, and reliability level. As the price goes up and the features, quality and reliability went down there would be fewer and fewer buyers. People understand why there weren’t buyers for new Yugos even at a low low price or Chrysler TC at a high price. Somehow people are baffled when the same principle shows up other places.
Has anyone been able to find that seemingly pro-slavery line Pat attributed to Thomas Jefferson?
I was looking for it, so I could see it in context, but I can not find it, even among spurious quotes attributed to TJ. Since Pat never answered my query as to where one could find the citation, I’d bet that he/she/it just pulled it out of their you-know-what…..
Good Mourning E! I have to laugh because as I am reading the RH column of recent posts I see this:
eric: Hi Graves, Don’t insult Luca! These corporate tools are more like the characters out of Atlas Shrugged; banal Babbitts who…
eric: Pat, Rand has nothing to do with this. You keep missing the point. GM is exploiting mandated demand in an authoritarian country…
Ok brother, you have definitely contradicted yourself there, lol! How many hours of No-Sleep are you running on anways? I just though you might appreciate the fact thaty I got a whole 3 hours of sleep myself in the last 36 hours, lol! Just remember, it’s all fun and games till somebody loses an eye!
Is it just me, or does this photo of Ruess look like Lucaa Brazzi minus 100 lbs? The silk tie and the “get that camera outta my face” look on his face just really makes great PR, No? Umm….No.
Hi Graves,
Don’t insult Luca!
These corporate tools are more like the characters out of Atlas Shrugged; banal Babbitts who grease palms and say All The Right Things, in order to avoid ruffling any feathers while raking in as much loot for themselves as possible.
Off topic,
Does anyone out there know how to turn off e-mail notification? I started getting them yesterday out of the blue.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Jeremy,
Just click on the “Manage your subscriptions” link at the end of any of those notifications, and you can choose to unsubscribe from any or all notifications.
Thanks,
Oh wise and generous Nunzio! (gratuitous compliment added to appease wordpress).
Cheers,
Jeremy
***”(gratuitous compliment added to appease wordpress).”***
I will accept it as genuine (To acknowledge said quirk- while denying any of my own, of course!) 😉
Hey Nunzio,
The compliment was genuine.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Aww, I know, Jeremy; and thanks. T’was just using the opportunity for a little jesting with the word-play, Sport*.
(I’ve got the darn RH song stuck in my head now! 🙂 )
Looks like Dunning-Kruger is alive and well here.
Never go full Dunning-Kruger!
I use to chuckle when my physics professor would say “there are only two kinds of people in this world – Scientists and chimpanzees”
He’s probably right.
Atmospheric CO2 is 100% driven by solar activity. Levels were much higher 700 years ago at the solar peak medieval warm period. The highest recorded CO2 was a bit less than 1% at peak dinosaur time period. Dinosaur bones were discovered in Antarctica, fercrysayks. CO2 level is at 0.04% (near plant-starving level) today and is falling thanks to the low solar cooling trend of the last 10 years.
Hi Cambo,
I discovered that (among other egregious things) the temperature measurements taken constitute a cherry-picked sample and that the Antarctic ice cap has increased – which you literally never hear about. That alone ought to be enough to arouse the Stink Alarm.
More generally, any purported scientific phenomena with a name as purposefully vague as “climate change” is inherently suspect on the face of it. I am boggled that most people do not immediately question everything based solely on that.
Global warming (solar activity) causes higher atmospheric CO2 and water.
CO2 and water are plant food.
hydrocarbon exhaust is CO2 and water.
Driving a Boeing 747 full throttle is Fucking GREEN.
Driving a Tesla or Prius is Fucking BROWN.
It’s stupidly laughable that the memorizing chimps call electrics and hybrids “Green”.
Most of the earth surface is desert and frozen tundra…Because the earth if friggin COLD and there is not enough CO2 and water in the atmosphere.
Good Lord, this is just basic 8th grade earth science.
“Peter,
You’ve guzzled the “climate change” Kool Aid. Rather than continue slurping it up, I urge you to take the time to read a bit more about the subject.”
Wibble wobble # 4.
Is that your argument Eric?
Some of your own disingenuous appeal to emotion claptrap?
Do you have any data or science to backup that opinion?
I believe in climate change, just not the SJW cause. If it didn’t change we’d never get a rain in west Tx and it would never stop in Seattle.
Global warming is very real but it began before there were homeo sapiens. The Asian genetics in Native Americans is due to the fact water didn’t cover the land mass between the American continent and Europe and Asia.
Glaciers melted eons before man existed in any significant numbers.
Yes 8S the climate changes hourly. That’s because the planet’s ecosystem is so large and complicated that it can never be in balance. The system will try to strike a balance but external factors, mainly the sun and its behavior come in to play. Were it not for the sun, the planet would be a ball of frozen rock at absolute zero.
Warming is much better than cooling, esp. for growing crops and general survivability.
Hey Jeremy,
“eschatology”
Isn’t that the study of scat?
?
Hey Tuan,
Hah, I suppose obsession with the end of the world could be considered the “study of scat”.
I visited Detroit recently, did a back to back Lafayette vs American comparison. I thunk I liked American just a tiny bit more.
Cheers,
Jeremy
But did you hit Lafayette Coney?
Of course,
It was my “go to” coney forever. Decided to try American, pretty good.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Study of scat? I thought that was Ellafitzgeraldtology?
(((Old NYer cartoon I saw once: Cat sitting on a fence making a racket.
Someone yells out of apartment window: “Scat!”.
Cat starts going “Scoodilybeeebopreediplovejoy….” 😀 )))
This is your electric future according to physical reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RbwOhM6PUk
What do you think now?
Good stuff, Cambo… I’ve been howling into the wind about this for years now!
Most of the time I just feel like a dog barking at the wind and then I realize it takes an IQ of 110 to even begin to reckon physical reality. The average IQ of a Democrat is somewhere around 92. They are more than a standard deviation away from fully human and the ability to integrate physical concepts. They are relatively retarded and not fit for the modern technological world. That’s why they vote to steal from everyone else.
Hi Cambo,
It’s depressing, but I suspect you’re on to something there. Evidence for which can be seen in the uniformly sloppy objections (I won’t call them arguments) that pop up here (and elsewhere) contra what I and others have written about EVs. It’s not a question of disagreement. It’s an inability to understand the nature of the disagreement. To skip right over the fundamental thing – and argue (emote) over some tangential thing.
It makes my teeth ache…
“It’s not a question of disagreement. It’s an inability to understand the nature of the disagreement”
Yes…One thing the little chimps are good at is memorizing what their political owners tell them to think. They cannot even BEGIN to understand the video I linked above. Talking to a Democrat is like talking to a programmed child.
“It’s not a question of disagreement. It’s an inability to understand the nature of the disagreement”
Yes and it goes deeper than that.
An inability to understand that there is a place for disagreement.
An inability to conceive that their position could be wrong.
An inability to recognize that they have ever been wrong in the past.
Of course any opposition to their view is clearly just contrarianism, because they are not wrong, so trying to understand or debate your view is just a pointless waste of their time, so they don’t.
Just public schooled / TV watching retards who can’t reason displaying Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Eric/Cambo,
The Dunning-Kruger Effect?
What or how does that relate to checking to make a lane change and seeing what you expect/want to see?
I’m sure you’ve checked your mirror before passing only to hear the horn of the guy you are about to cut off as you change lanes.
Just trying to figure my level of retardation.
When I was a kid I was landing in Tallahassee and the air traffic controller told me I was cleared to land. He said to call him when I was over the numbers. So I did.
He then asked me what the numbers said. I told him 17. He said to keep going about a mile and a half and I would see runway 18, and the tower he was working.
I was sure I was at the right airport, but they tell me I was suffering from Confirmation Bias.
Last week a friend of mine was plowing the same lot he has been doing for over twenty years. He backed into a light pole. He said he probably did this lot 175 times. Nonetheless, he swears he didn’t see that light pole.
Is this an “accident” or caused by a general dumbing down?
Hi T,
I’m all for checking (and checking again) before making a lane change or any other maneuver that might put me in the proximity of another vehicle or object. I try to maintain situational awareness around my perimeter continuously, as I drive. The only dumbing down tendency I know of is the general tendency toward paying attention to things other than one’s driving and what other drivers in the vicinity are doing (and where they are in relation to you).
Sometimes, of course, things happen. But they tend to happen less (if at all) if one is vigilant!
eric, I saw that self-righteous little twit David “piggy” Hog a couple days ago. He was spewing hate and even began to include “old people” as it was obvious he was speaking of his parents. It seems because they don’t have the time to devote to learning everything about a cellphone and asked a question or two, he couldn’t speak derisively enough about them.
He kept up a rant about old people and I was struck by how truly clueless and immature he is.
Now I kidded my parents and their generation about specific words they said when I was younger than him but it was never derisive and we’d all laugh about some things.
I thought my dad was pretty clueless when I was 15 since he wasn’t clued in to the latest things important to my crowd. He went from being a guy not “up” with it to being one of the most intelligent people I knew when I was 21.
I suspect little Dave may never catch on since the libtards made him their anti-gun twit after the Florida school shootings.
The fact is after listening to him a few minutes he didn’t have a clue about the reality of the situation.
Hag Pelosi and her minions don’t have a clue except I really think she does. It’s one reason I wonder if she is human, not saying that in a facetious way at all. And here’s why: How old does she expect to be when she dies? I don’t believe she’s so clueless as to not know why the 2nd Amendment was written even though no doubt millions of the brainwashed don’t get it.
I get wanting to disarm everyone if you intend to live forever, if you’re immortal compared to humans.
Timelines are important with various species, one reason why I think she and Chuck might actually be aliens as many others have suggested. I doubt intelligent people don’t understand about throwing off the shackles of tyranny. They appear to be duplicitous enough to be other than human. Well, back to my Outer’s and cleaning kit.
This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. I must master it as I master my life. Without me my rifle is useless. Without my rifle I am useless. I must fire my rifle true…….
What astounds me is how the public buys into the notion that any “victim” of a given crime is likewise an authority on said crime. By virtue of being a victim, one is merely more experienced in the ability of being victimized. That alone should be a clue as to the victim’s apparent lack of situational awareness regarding said crime. In truth, Hoggy is heralded as some sort of hero for not having been shot and killed, so does that really count as a victim? This bullshit “could’ve, would’ve, should’ve” mentality stems from a greater ignorance of one’s environment. Fearmongering has become a new hobby for politicians and alarmists alike, and I don’t see it waning anytime soon!
What astounds me, gtc, is that that stupid little prick [Don’t know what he looks like; don’t watch TV- but he’s gotta be a little prick!]- if anything- if he had a brain, one would think that HE of all people should realize the utter vulnerability and helplessness of being in a “gun free zone”!
So what does the ass do? He advocates making the entire country a “gun free[for innocent citizens] zone”- so everyone can be a helpless, vulnerable, defenseless little prick like he is!
How the hell did the bullets miss that big of a dick?!
Exactly my point! What fucktards parade a twit like like this and use him to advocate the very policy that got his friends aced? This society is so fucked up when it not only can’t see the stupidity of a defenseless public, but actually goes on a nationwide rampage to make everyone in the nation a target for larceny and murder! Appeasement, the same moronic shit that “Snivel” Chamberlain tried to use to stop Adolf Hitler’s aggression in 1939. Cowering and pleading with thugs only makes them bolder and more violent. Arm every teacher, parent, and student over the age of 16, and stop giving psychotic asswipes an easy target on a silver platter! “Gun Free Zone” might as well read “Come Rob, Rape, & Kill my Helpless Ass”!
“goes on a nationwide rampage to make everyone in the nation a target for larceny and murder! ”
They demand EQUALITY, man, EQUALITY!
God made all mankind, Samuel Colt made all men equal.
““Snivel” Chamberlain”
LOL…Nice!
GTC, Eight, Nunz… Be nice to David Hogg….. do you not realise that he is being set up to one day be one of our Dear Leaders…. at which point comments like these will probably get us all a trip to room 101…..
Hi Nasir,
I cut Hogg a little slack because he’s literally just a dumb kid. Dangerous, though.
Sad thing is, most Repugnantcans aren’t far from the Dumbocraps these days- They might be batting a good 95 or 96 IQ on a good day.
Too bad there wasn’t a scale for morality!
They’d all fail miserably!
You could have a person who isn’t very bright- but who has a high degree of morality- i.e. believes in people’s right to be left alone; believes in the sanctity of private property; freedom of association; etc. and they would be a better defender of liberty and humanity than the most brilliant thinker who possesses a world of knowledge, but who doesn’t give a damn about those simple aforementioned virtues.
The Albert Einsteins and Stephen Hawkings of this world contribute nothing to the fight of man against tyranny- but almost always aid and abet t the enemy, whether by creating technologies which are invariably used for destruction and control; or by destroying culture, by substituting their own fantasies of what should be/might be, for reality and real scientific investigation.
“Too bad there wasn’t a scale for morality!”
There is…Thou Shall Not Steal. That’s all.
It’s not “Thou Shall Not Steal….Except by majority vote”.
Amen to that!
Most Americans would rate a zero on that scale today- while paying lip-service to it, because they have another god before the LORD: The god of State.
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are…”
The State- thus man- is their ultimate authority. Thou shalt do no murder…unless the state sanctions it.
Cambo, I think there are two kinds of people who vote democrat. Those that are stupid, and those that are evil. I do not think that a single democrat voter could NOT fall into one of those two categories.
Face it…Political people (especially Democrats/Socialists) are all just fucking evil. Anyone who claims to own you and your income is just plain fucking evil.
…With the possible exception of your own children under the age of 8 🙂
Hi Cambo,
Yes. Indeed.
I am in the middle of a standoff with someone who is a good friend but may not be one much longer – over this very issue. He likes AGWs; has AGW friends – and is on the verge of dating one. He knows this woman is not welcome in my house; that I won’t be around her (or any other AGW) and if their relationship proceeds, becomes serious, it will likely mean he and I stop being friends because we won’t be seeing much of each other any longer.
I love the guy – he’s the type I could call at 2 in the morning to help me get rid of a body – but I cannot abide AGWs. They, for me, represent the apotheosis of all that’s become (as you say) evil about this country.
They are too stupid to figure out whether to embrace AGW or not…Yet the choose AGW. Did they just flip a coin?
Their choice REVEALS that they are inherently evil. The choice was not thought out at all but landed on by using their very instinctive nature. I really don’t think it is just virtue signaling.
Good luck to your friend…especially after she hits menopause. I bet she eats him…figuratively.
Eric,
They could have used your friend in St. Louis.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/questions-surround-killing-of-off-duty-st-louis-police-officer/article_f3592056-3e0f-5e6a-b083-38039a17424e.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-2
Ouch, Eric!
Stay away from that guy- or anyone who is so bereft of vision and common sense that they do not abhor pigs and other government scum.
These kind of people may seem agreeable and not so bad to hang out with on a casual basis, but in the end, their utter lack of love for justice and liberty ends up allowing the forces of this world to turn these people into enablers of the state, and the very thing which we, and all just-minded people hate.
If he dates that pig-ette, even if you no longer bother with him, he knows a lot about you- and even if he only mentions a few tid-bits about you occasionally to the pig-ette, SHE will end up knowing some things about you.
After she F&^$s him over and they break up (or worse yet, if they stay together!) she may well use one of those tid-bits when she or one of her colleagues has nothing better to do.
The more they know about one…the worse it is.
I’ve seen it time and again…. (Too many pigs, or people involved with pigs amongst my relatives- which is why I don’t bother with them. Why would I bother with those who embrace the very thing I most despise?).
The pig who is dating the lady on the block, or who comes to live in the neighborhood, knows all about the neighbors; all about the friends and relatives of the person they’re involved with:
Who smokes pot. Who drives without insurance; Who is behind on their child support; who works “off the books”; Who’s got cash in the house;, etc. Even if the pig in question doesn’t do anything….he talks to other pigs…. and one day, if they “want you” for one reason or another 9i.e. don’t like you; just need to make a bust; know that you oppose pigs; etc.)…or if you have something they want (“What are you going to do, call the police? HAhaha”) ; or if they’re just looking for a good ol’ fishing expedition…
It never goes well for anyone involved with pigs…even those who are removed a few steps from the actual person involved.
Having a close friend who doesn’t share your values, is like dating/marrying a woman who doesn’t share those same values. No good can come of it- and eventually, if you don’t get disgusted with them and their politics/worldview/morality, they will get disgusted by yours (To them, WE are the clueless idiots; infidels; traitors; braindead; problematic; etc).
It may seem hard jetisoning someone whom you consider a good friend- but really, if he can not see the evil inherent in pigs; or is so bereft of morality that he doesn’t care, then I would suggest that the outward things you like about him are a cloak for core issues that would despise if he displayed them- which, in this example, of being willing to even consider dating a pig, is exactly what is happening.
I’ve known people like that too. I’m still in touch with a few- they’re “nice guys”, and always game- but they just don’t care about things like liberty and justice. If they can bounce through life and have a nice vehicle to drive, and a decent house to live in; a little entertainment; a decent job, then everything is hunky-dory. I keep people like that at a distance. They are generic beings. They may not be malicious or disagreeable, etc. but their lack of strong feelings for the stuff that is ultimately most important makes them easily manipulated by the forces of this world, into being the very essence of what we abhor. Such is just not always readily apparent, because of their general easy-going non-threatening, agreeable natures.
I agree with you Nunzio. My sister used to be very distrustful of the State, but then she married a guy who became a coproach. I wasn’t yet an anarchist back then, but I already disliked cops due to the crimes and imoral deeds that so many of them commit. He finally left the force due to a lack of pay raises after ‘serving’ 8-10 years, but he still had cop friends and watched cop TV programs. When I visited on the holidays, I always acted nice to him, but I never felt comfortable.
I then transformed into being an anarchist, and nobody in my family including him liked it when I would point out how evil the State was, or my criticism of cops being allowed to lie.
The combination of being married to a cop and the statistics doctrine their Church taught caused my sister to become one of ‘them’.
I haven’t met or had anything to do with them for nearly a decade now.
Perfect example:
Years ago, someone had moved into the rental trailer just down the road from me. I’d constantly hear their noisy truck starting up…idling for 15 minutes, then driving down the road (you could hear it for miles)…only to return 10 or 20 minutes later. And then 20 minutes or a half hour later, the same scenario would repeat itself…again and again all day long.
I was talking to my neighbor one night, and said “What is up with the new guy in that trailer?! He comes and goes all day long…”- and I explained the scenario.
After 2 or 3 days, I no longer heard the noisy truck. Turns out, unbeknownst to me at the time, my neighbor’s father used to be the sheriff…and I guess my neighbor mentioned the noisy truck scenario to “the right people” and the guy got busted for selling drugs.
All because of one innocent comment, made to someone who has a connection with a former pig. Of course, had I known that, or suspected what the noisy truck guy was doing, I never would have mentioned it to my neighbor- and I feel terrible that it was my innocent comment that led to the guy’s kidnapping (He must be stupid though- sheesh! At least have a QUIET vehicle, so as not to be so OBVIOUS!)- but it just goes to show ya, how the slightest tid-bit of info…the most innocent comment- can have far-reaching affects if some badged ghoul just gets wind of it in the air…..
Will it be a Brave New world or 1984?
Oops, 1984 is already here.
That is supposing we make it …….
“I’m totally convinced the world is run by people who are insane.” John Lennon.
I say this a lot when discussing with other peers (millenials) that “Nature Doesn’t Lie”.
This can be used in various conversations and topics of the day, gender dysphoria fad, global warming, etc.
It’s a lot worse that that, haha.
EV proponents will claim many things, like electric motor efficiency is 95%, etc……
Here’s some ammo:
1. IC engines are roughly 35% eff., so they say E-motor is 95%, what they fail to mention is the power plant that makes the E is roughly 45% eff., then you add in all the losses in distribution and losses of transformers, etc.. and it’s probably worse eff. for E-cars, total.
2. We all know here that range and charging are their problems. Porsche just announced a high voltage super charger that E-people are saying is the greatest thing ever and e-cars are here now. hahaha.
One little look into said supercharger and it is 450kw. This means it needs around 2000amps to do it’s work at 240v (household voltage), and the supercharger is designed for 800v! hahahah. Even at 800v it still needs around 600amps! The wiring for 600amps is approx. 4″ thick. I am no e-expert, but have a basic understanding of the stuff. You can easily see the problems coming. But it won’t stop the propaganda.
3. As Eric has said many times, we are being bamboozled for sure. But they do it all the time. Get t he public to buy in and they will help move crap forward.
Quick example of being bamboozled: I own a large property in NJ. NJ politicians needed a way to reduce or eliminate development in the more rural areas of NJ (the cities were emptying to more rural areas). They sprouted ‘suburban sprawl’ for a while but it went no where. Then they figured it out and claimed ‘save the water’. The public bought in. They passed the Highlands Act which eliminated almost all development, which forced the big boys to re-develop the blighted cities. It worked. The rural land owners were promised compensation for their loss of property rights and loss of value. The money never came, but my property rights were eliminated and my properties value dropped 50% to this day (10yrs). Today, my kids can not build a house on my large property (over 50 acres). Unreal, right? It was never about water, we have more than almost anywhere in the country. It was about moving development by force. The bonus for the big boys is they now get to buy up said devalued land at mucho savings. About 10+ years from now the politicians will claim ‘we need more development in the Highlands’ and the laws will change back, and all the big boys get their cake and can eat it too……………
My own town even bought in hook-line-and-sinker, even after we protected ourselves from big developers by up-zoning. Hard to do, but we found a way to get all the larger land owners to buy in. How it’s supposed to work. I told the council that this Highlands act will not end well, they didn’t care. My town is starting look like a 3rd world country and they can’t figure out why. The last new commercial (non big box, we never wanted those) was built 10 years ago.
“. IC engines are roughly 35% eff., so they say E-motor is 95%, what they fail to mention is the power plant that makes the E is roughly 45% eff., then you add in all the losses in distribution and losses of transformers, etc.. and it’s probably worse eff. for E-cars, total.”
Depends what power plant. If you get a lot of HydroPower or Nukes or Wind or Solar.
Oh and if it’s nuke/Hydro it’s cheap electricity, if the nuke is paid off.
If it’s wind or Solar it’s damn cheap.
The real efficiency question is “What’s the well to wheels output?” that means
looking at the efficiency of oil extraction, then the transport, then the refining,
then the distribution of Gasoline, then the ICE motor burn”…
The real question is ops costs and dev costs. Wind and Solar are now cheaper then
Coal and that’s destroying coal… You can whine all you want but, the economic reality is there and the green eye shade types are now moving in.
Wind and Solar CHEAPER than coal? Were that so, so many UTILITIES, the primary users of coal (even more than steelmaking) would be shutting down their coal generation plants. Instead, they’re lobbying like hell to overcome regulatory hurdles to get them built. Meanwhile, so many utilities, like PG&E and SMUD here in Northern Cali(porn)ia, are no longer sponsoring solar and wind projects due to excess capacity!
Here’s 50 cents worth of ‘free’ advice: Get to know your subject matter BEFORE you spout off, dumbass!
Interesting…
I submitted this comment before….
Lazard says Wind is cheaper then coal…
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/
and coal plants are shutting down.
Clover,
Plants are “shutting down” because of regulatory compliance costs. We are being forced to subsidize your “alternatives,” regardless of the cost.
wind is cheaper then coal…
Check w/ Lazard
Clover,
“Wind” is completely impractical on any scale, for the same reason as solar. Your blind spot (well, one of them) is that you assume cost is no object because you (apparently) have plenty of money to burn on the things you think are “cool.” The problem is that most people haven’t got it – and resent being mulcted to pay for your toys
Wind and solar combined will never come close to meeting US’s E-demand of 10M Megawatts per day. And it’s impossible.
Nuke, oil, coal, nat’l gas, etc.. are the only way.
Nuke is the best way forward.
If I were to design America’s future, it would be Nuke, period. Every other way is much less effective, costly, etc…
Chris, I can’t speak to solar but Texas now has an electric glut on nonpeak hours due to wind.
Of course I only know of one company that makes wind power that takes no subsidy. That should be a red flag that none require subsidy.
Nonpeak electricity in Texas is sold for up to -$8/KWH. Anyone can find the correct figures for wind generated power with ease.
As an aside, people in general are clueless about power, wind or otherwise. Last year working in a wind generation field hauling rock from a quarry there a codriver said to a millenial who thought he was a truck driver “You need to stay away from those towers, they store electricity in there all night to be used during the day”. No shit said the young dumbass. Sure enough was the reply.
The young guy got this look of consternation or whatever he commonly had rattling around up there. We old hands were hard pressed not to bust a gut. We pointed and laughed about it all day.
I don’t like working under them due to the subsonic sound they make and the huge chunks of ice they shed as temperature rises.
They also interfere with radio waves making communication difficult near them.
“If I were to design America’s future, it would be Nuke, period.”
Nuclear power is the most socialized power source. The french run a 100% socialized state sector for electricity. The only nukes attempted to be built in the US required Billions of Public loan guarantees to break ground and are 10 years behind schedule and 3X over budget.
The only countries building nukes of significance are Russia and China.
CONGRATULATIONS, PAT B !!!!!!!!
Wooooo-hoooooo!
For once, you stated something factual; sensible; ….and with which I agree!
I nearly fainted…..
CONGRATULATIONS, PAT B!!!!!!!!
For ONCE, you said something that is accurate, sensible, and with which I can agree!
I nearly fainted.
CONGRATULATIONS, PAT B!!!!!!!!
For ONCE, you said something that is accurate, sensible, and with which I can agree!
I nearly fainted.
“Wind is completely impractical on any scale”?
Funny 10 years ago Libertarians were shrieking Wind would destroy the grid…
and now “At the end of 2017, Texas had more than 22,000 megawatts of wind power, more than triple Oklahoma’s 7,500 megawatts of wind generating capacity, the second highest in the nation.”
Clover,
Libertarians do not “shriek.” We do object – on factual grounds – to coercive collectivist “solutions.” No Libertarian I know objects to windmills or solar panels or EVs – as such. Free people ought to be free to design and build such things and free people free to buy them, if they wish.
The objection is to forcing them on people and to robbing some people to benefit other people.
Again, I recognize these are principles and concepts your cognitively dissonant mind has trouble understanding.
“Libertarians do not “shriek.” We do object – on factual grounds”
Well Doug is fact free when he claims Coal is cheaper then Wind.
Hi Pat,
Well, we’ll see… note that your civil and reasonable comment didn’t get “Clovered”!
“Wind is cheaper…”
HAHAHAHAHahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
Yet another bumblefuck which must be subsidized and incentivized because it is not economically viable and would therefore not exist but for those subsidies and incentives.
On the other hand, there are many disincentives and artificial hurdles to using coal…and yet it is gladly used, and produces the cheapest electricity available.
I won’t argue it is subsidized. It just doesn’t have to be. The cost of wind generation has dropped quite a bit and now they even qualify for a “green” rating since the old blades are recycled into other products.
It makes sense that if you have an area with reliable winds that it would work – and without subsidies. Conceptually wind power is not much different than hydroelectric, you just have a different (albeit more diffuse) medium providing the flow to run the generators.
Nunzio
“Coal is cheaper”..
If you believe this, you would be investing in Coal mining companies, and coal heavy utilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_coal_power_stations_in_the_United_States
There are 20 coal stations, you should invest into their holding companies.
Clover,
Coal is cheaper – it has been made artificially expensive via regulatory edict. Which is also the reason, by the way that cars cost as much as they do, including your beloved EVs. If they didn’t have to comply with a roster of regulatory rigmarole, they could be light – as well as cost much less. There are brand-new IC cars with AC and most power options available in other countries for $8,000 or so.
Reason? They only have two air bags – and offer less occupant protection in the event of a 50 MPH offset barrier crash. But that doesn’t make them “unsafe” – as in prone to crash. It just means they aren’t as able to absorb impact forces in a crash as a larger/heavier car.
It ought to be between the car company and the car buyer how much punishment a car can absorb if it crashes. In a free country, that ought to be no business of the government’s because the government isn’t our parent – and we are not children. Free adults have a right to choose to drive, say, a very light – and so very fuel efficient – car and risk the possibility of more injury if they have a crash – because it’s their life to risk, not the government’s. People who prefer the greater physical security of a large/heavy – and less efficient – car should be free to buy that type of car. Each free to make their own decision.
Just as I am free to work out/run – and you (if you wish) don’t have to do either of those things, even though it is “healthier” to work out and stay in shape than to be sedentary. My life – and your life. I don’t own you – you don’t own me.
I realize these concepts are not only foreign to a Clover such as yourself but also that you are hostile toward them. Because you believe in being the master of slaves who are forced to do as you say – and also to hand over the product of their labor to you, or to fund the things you desire to be funded… with money you didn’t earn, taken by force from unwilling victims.
You’re a thug, Clover – but a poltroonish one. I doubt much you’d have the guts to do the actual wet work yourself.
Why don’t you come to my house and try to force me to subsidize your EV, for instance. Just you – and me. No gang (the government) doing your work for you.
Would that make you uncomfortable? If so, think about why…
Decent human beings don’t threaten other human beings who’ve done them no harm with violence. They leave them be – and are entitled to the same in return.
Why is that so hard to grok? Why do you object to it?
Hey Eric, I knew a guy who crashed into one’a them offset barriers once! What a dummy! 😉
I think I figured out who Pat is; co-wrote a song once, that went “I am you, and you are me, and we are all together…” -ya know…used to be in a band with George, Paul and Ringo…..
Thanks for the financial advice, Pat- but since I am a subsistance farmer and not a banker, I don’t lend my money out on usury.
And although coal is indeed the cheapest source of energy, thanks to [again…] politicians who use our money to subsidize other less-efficient and more expensive sources of energy, while straddling coal with the aforementioned disincentives and hurdles; and their preferential treatment of and love for the oil companies, the energy market is far from being a free market- so I would not consider it wise for anyone to invest in something that is in a market which is heavily manipulated by artificial political forces.
But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying some of the cheapest electricity in this country which is produced by that coal [With a big thank you to the electric cooperatives of KY. and others who fought vigorously against the Obozo administration, which was trying to eliminate/greatly reduce the use of that coal).
Good luck with your Tesla stock…..
Nunzio,
If you were a true subsistence citizen, you would have a stationary bike with a generator.
Or better yet, a giant gerbil cage to show your devotion to our benevolent rulers.
Be PROUD!!
Be PRODUCTIVE!!
Be OBEDIENT!!
Don’t forget the high fiber diet with the methane generator shoved up your ass.
“And although coal is indeed the cheapest source of energy, thanks to “
Coal is dying worldwide because it’s getting squeezed by Cheap Wind, Cheap PV, Cheap Gas and LED lights…
And there you go again… it is regulatory costs that are killing coal.
Again, Pat, if wind were truly cheaper, it would not need to be subsidized and incentivized, to compete with coal, which is more expensive than it naturally would be if it were not penalized and discouraged by Uncle.
Hi Eric,
Last year I came across Tony Seba’s lecture “Clean Disruption – Why Conventional Energy and Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030” done at Uni of Boulder I think. Would be interested to hear your take on it.
My own interpretation is that the auto execs are convinced en masse that this will occur, as will 70% retraction in auto production, as will decimation of oil industry and a wholesale change in landscape of transportation. This would explain their abandonment of catering to customers of their vehicles (aka “traditional capitalism and knowing your market”.
Is it an inevitability? Will the technological pace be unstoppable? Even if it is wholly dependent of govco regulation and subsidised? Or are the execs under a fatal delusion? We live in very interesting times to be car enthusiasts, for sure.
Part of Seba’s argument is that decentralised power production – like the solar on my roof here in Australia – is taking off at rates that will make a home-charged EV feasible soon. And that pricing will soon be down to easily available levels (in Australia, that’s 20K+ for a Corolla, for example). I know with my own experience, my solar quartered my electricity bill and paid itself off in 3.5 years – I’m looking for home batteries to fall into this range – then a car in that 20K range that I capture the electricity for, will save about 5K in fuel each year. 5K over 4 years = 20K saving, pays off car, roughly; at that rate capital deployed into this car will pay itself off, vs an upgrade to another ICE. Once paid off, that fuel saving of 5K could permit me through my human action (shoutout to Ludwig von Mises) to spend into the economy on other services or goods, or I could save it to earn a higher return, or deploy it to produce a product to create a profit.
There’s also the nationalist interpretation – any country that sees people generate their own electricity for their cars all of a sudden doesn’t need to import the oil via ME oil cartels or mass refineries in Singapore (in Australia’s case) – so that takes a big chunk out of our trade deficit and the money spent will be spent mostly inside our own economy (or better still, build savings to deploy into productive enterprise). Of course, most of our panels are imported, but I can dream we actually make them ourselves. I know the US has shale, but do you see a future where its yield declines?
For the older cars that we love – I think they will remain in country areas. Nothing comes close to the portability and usefulness of liquid fuels when you are 1000km from a major city – or large town for that matter. Here, you can also drive cars on historic plates at reduced rego, once they reach a certain age. So I think pockets of automotive freedom will remain.
That’s my take on it, the cities really do seem to be going full 1984, what do you think Eric?
Hi Jack,
The EV juggernaut is almost entirely artificial, driven by government mandates and subsidies – which ought to concern people because it strongly suggests the inherent infeasibility of the whole thing. If EVs are superior as cars (i.e., enhance mobility, make it easier, cheaper) then there would be no need for the mandates and subsidies. But the car companies see the mandates – existing and pending – and are orienting their business models to work in that context.
It is one thing to use electricity to power a small device such as computer or phone. It is another to use it to power several thousand pounds of car. Battery technology – anything existing or practical – does not even approach the energy density/practicality/cost of gas.
This whole push – and that’s the right word – is about control. The idea is to reduce mobility. The sooner people grok this, the better. There may still be time.
my kid came to me many years ago and said ‘dad, the school is putting in solar panels and it’s great’ haha…. ok son, lets do the math together. he was shocked. he presented a paper and was dismissed as a loonie.
Even my town bought in, called me crazy.
Turns out the entire county got bamboozled and the whole county is now on the hook for $30M. Nice.
I told my council, NEVER take ownership or maintenance of said solar system, we will lose.
It’s coming.
If I remember correctly, you would need a few acres of solar to charge a car……..
“If I remember correctly, you would need a few acres of solar to charge a car…”
You are wrong.
On a typical day, my EV burns 10KWH. So in a 6 Hour solar day, I need
about 1500 watts. The typical panel these days are about 300 watts,
so I need 5 panels.
Now if you drive from Hickville ND to Redneckia SD every day, the numbers may be different, but, most people drive about 20-30 miles to work.
Clover,
You denounce Nunzio for using disparaging terms for blacks… and then let loose the “redneckia” bomb. I suspected as much. You are roiling with racism – toward whites – and ooze contempt for people who don’t want to be “nudged” in the direction you want to “nudge” them. Such people are “deplorables” – as Hillary styled them. For preferring to live their lives as they see fit and not be parented by control freaks such as yourself.
And I see you are an EV owner (well, partially; others were forced to “help” you buy it) and so that’s your motivation – to justify your virtue signaling.
I drive an EV because it’s cool.
Oh yeah, it rocks coming out of a red light.
But, your little burg may not have any traffic lights,
so it’s not a useful feature there.
As for HRC, I have no idea what she thinks. I didn’t vote for her.
Clover,
I’d like to drive a new 911 – it would be very “cool,” too. But I won’t demand you subsidize it, which is the difference between you and I.
Well, one of them.
I am not an effete racist snob; you have proved yourself to be exactly that.
Eric, I prefer “the little burg” Patricio references. They’re much more peaceful and friendly. I’ve noticed the more traffic lights in an area, the more dangerous living there to be.
Being an old hick with my closest neighbors being over half a mile away we seem to have a great deal of civility Patty Boy is obviously lacking.
You can be assured if I use the term “cityslickers”, it probably won’t be a term of endearment.
A small “conventional” car, with a three or four-banger and an old-fashioned manual stick (not that dual-clutch crap that Ford suckered me into buying, deeming it an ‘automatic’, hence why Ford is paying big bucks to fix them for life or buy the cars back, they’re complete lemons) will still be far cheaper to purchase, fuel, and maintain, and fair more VERSATILE than your ballyhooed EV, Pat B.
And you miss the point of the discussion. YOUR choice of an EV is perfectly fine IF you pay for it WITHOUT any tax credits or other “Gubmint” subsides, to yourself AND/OR the manufacturer. And electric DID once exist in significant numbers…about 110 years ago! It was Henry Ford’s Model T that doomed “alternative” vehicles, as they simply couldn’t compete them. Sans “Gubmint” subsidies, they STILL wouldn’t! And it’s arrogant of you to presume the motoring needs of OTHERS. What’s next, you gonna presume to dictate what home one buys or rents, or clothes worn, or whom they screw?
hahahahha. try it. Would love to see your results.
Here’s just a simple search, the source matters:
https://blog.pickmysolar.com/how-many-solar-panels-does-it-take-to-fuel-an-electric-car
https://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/the-true-cost-of-powering-an-electric-car.html
https://solarchargeddriving.com/2018/02/28/how-many-solar-panels-does-it-take-to-charge-an-electric-car/
I picked different answers for a reason. Best of luck.
Couple points:
1. If you are able to do with a 30 mile round trip to work, why don’t you take a bike or ride a bus since you must live in an urban area? If you really care you should be doing that.
2. I happen to live between Hickville ND and Redneckia, SD. It’s a wonderful place where and how all decent human beings aspire to live. Big cities have their charms, but they are lousy places to live. How’s that for perspective?
3. Have you actually tried to use solar panels? I have- they are cost effective to run a few LED lights in some of my outbuildings. If I need to do anything useful in the buildings like run the welder or the plasma cutter, I need a bigly generator burning wonderful liquid batteries. You call them fossil fuels.
4. There have been tremendous gains in solar and wind technology in the last 20 years, partly due to the buckets of money being shoveled into it. This cannot change the fundamental physics of only 1413 watts/sq meter total maximum energy coming to earth from the sun. A decent solar cell of about 1 square meter will be capturing about 100 watts of that. At least the $140/ sq meter ones I and most folks buy.
In short, it aint gonna work. Ever. And wind may be more concentrated, but it still isnt close to being good enough.
But Ernie, don’t you know that super-duper hyper-efficient cost-effective mystical magical solar panels are ‘just around the corner’ in the magnificent future? Silly boy! 😉
Next week you’ll be able to fire-up that arc welder just by aiming your solar wrist watch at the sun…..
Hi Ernie,
“Pat” is a fantasist or propagandist – not sure which. Every fact-based objection/correction is ignored; every logical argument/point (as yours, above) evaded with an effusion of non sequiturs.
People such as “Pat” are believers – in the Heaven’s Gate sense. Might as well argue with Applewhite over the shedding of his container…
Hi Eric, I do agree that it is mandate driven. So perhaps it will all end in tears and the execs will be remembered in Business classes as an example of what not to do. (Holden Australia and the Commodore already are, I’d say!) Things are reading quite like ‘Atlas Shrugged’ at present: if you are in power, you vie with others to see if your loony policy gets enacted over theirs. I do agree it is about control, and the technology seems to do the opposite of ‘setting us free’.
Have you looked at Mazda’s SkyActiv X motors? They alone seem to be developing ICE to its limit (here, anyway) – a compression midway between petrol and diesel, can run on 91, it switches combustion cycle (? iirc).
I like to think the tracks I take (to get to the surf, some 4wd tracks) will be places autonomous electric cars won’t go – there won’t be the volume of demand. But at the same time, if I were going to spend the money anyway and can find an EV that’s manually driven, the 5K in fuel I save can do quite a good remote surf trip each year in, say, a 100 Series petrol V8 Landcruiser!
Also, have you looked into the 5g networks that will be required to maintain this system? Health effects of such?
It’s quite disappointing to realise that if we spent this level of technological development on rocketry and ion thrusters instead of smartphones, social media and the Internet of Toasters, we’d be beyond Mars by now… Looking forward to the 2030 missions at any rate – go USA!
Hi Jack,
It’s worse than Atlas Shrugged – which described society falling into ruin. What is happening is the erection of a company town – on a planetary scale. The majority will work perpetually – keeping their heads down – never owning more than the clothes on their back, to service endless debt. Meanwhile, the handful who run the town will live in affluence, driving their high-dollar EVs paid for by the debt servicing of the masses.
” Battery technology – anything existing or practical – does not even approach the energy density/practicality/cost of gas.”
Wow.. A simple physics based argument that is utterly wrong.
Eric you are probably looking this way “Gasoline 46 MJ/KG. Lead-Acid Battery
0.1 MJ/KG” you see 500X and you promptly stop. A nice elegant argument that
is utterly misleading.
Let’s address cost first. Using your logic… Gasoline $3.00/Gal or about $0.80/Liter
or in mass terms $0.50/lb or $1.20/KG… However Electricity is a lot cheaper. On a volume or mass basis electricity is really cheap”
Oh, I can hear the squawking. Electricity weighs nothing… Electrons have a mass but they are 10EE-31KG… so one electron is 1EE-19 Coulomb, so it’s 1EE12 Coulomb/KG of Electrons. So from an Energy Density. Electricity wins….
Now lets look at cost. My Volt costs 4 cents/Mile to run on electricity and the Camry
it replaced cost 12cents/Mile to run. Camry 30 MPG, Gas $3.00/Gal= 10c/mile +20% for oil changes. I get to change oil about every 18-24 months. That’s why fleet buyers like EVs.
Then there is Practicality. Now maybe off in Hickville it’s 100 miles to get supplies
for the farm but for real americans i’ts about 20. 80% of all trips are less then 40.
I routinely drive to Alabama in a day, no big deal in my Volt.
So, your argument while completely clear to you is utterly wrong, but you are a libertarian. They haven’t been right on anything for 30 years.
Clover … my racist (“redneckia,” “hicksville”) Clover muse…
If, per your pleading, EVs are so spectacularly superior or even competitive on the merits, then why is it necessary to mandate their manufacture (via outright quotas and de facto quotas, such as CAFE) and subsidize them in order to get most people to even consider buying one?
Will you ever answer this simple – and fundamental – question? You won’t, because the answer is devastating to your argument, such as it is.
Your Volt failed. GM cancelled it.
Why? Because although it is a technically interesting car and more practical than other EVs – because it has a gas engine, which effectively deals with the range/recharge gimps which afflict other EVs – it is still inferior in terms of cost of ownership to a conventional IC-powered (exclusively) sedan otherwise similar, such as a four cylinder Civic or even a Camry, that can be bought for about $10k less.
Your Volt only makes economic sense when gas costs three or four times its current price. At some point, that may happen, I grant – but for political reasons. There is so much gas (oil) that if full production occurred, gas would be too cheap to bother selling.
Facts, Clover.
“Why? Because although it is a technically interesting car and more practical than other EVs – because it has a gas engine – it is still inferior in terms of cost of ownership to a conventional IC-powered (exclusively) sedan otherwise similar, such as a four cylinder Civic or even a Camry, that can be bought for about $10k less.”
Sorry, for someone who knows so much about cars, you really don’t seem to know much about market strategy. The Volt was never aimed at Civic buyers, it was aimed at BMW buyers and it was the first time GM started winning 3 series buyers and Mercedes Low end C and E cars.
The volt died when the Cruze was cancelled. Given it shared a body line and many components off that, it was toast the minute the Cruze was done.
Now if you want to make an argument that GM made a mistake with the Voltec drive expansion it would be the ELR. If GM had upgraded the Voltec electronics and stuck it in the Vette, that would have been interesting. High price point, stick a second set of motors in the rear axle, still have the gas engine for long haul. Lots of torque and
you can still drive for hours. If you really wanted to do something,
fun, set up the rear motors for torque steering. it would corner like it’s on rails. The ELR was attempting to fresh up Cadillac but it resonated like the Cimarron.
But, As much as you talk smack, you haven’t been paying attention to
Pikes Peak. That is one of the ultimate performance races and the current record holder is an EV. Smoked the mountain record by a minute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak_International_Hill_Climb#Race_records
Clover,
The Volt failed; that’s the reality.
It was being given away – leased at a loss – years before the Cruze got cancelled.
Facts.
And in re Pikes Peak: Winning speed contests is not the issue, Clover. I don’t deny that EVs are very quick. But they are not economical, and are gimped by serious practical problems – which (again!) is why they cannot survive as other than high-dollar boutique cars for the very affluent absent massive subsidies and mandated production quotas.
Facts, again.
If an electric car existed that cost less to own than an otherwise comparable IC car and didn’t afflict its owner with hassles (having to plan around lengthy recharge times, having to worry about reduced range and the effect of using accessories on range) then it would sell, of course. And I’d applaud. Or at least, I wouldn’t object.
But the fact is, no such EV exists – and while you can assert one is “coming,” the fact is it’s not available and hence the necessity of mandates and subsidies.
Facts… which I understand are inconvenient things.
Eric, I’ve been a bad boy. I said a dirty word, actually lots of them, in the biggest boldest capitalized font I could manage. I don’t think it will even be posted…..that bad! I will understand if you don’t because it really does exceed all standards of decency and civility you are trying to maintain here, (despite the insults hurled at everyone by the narcissist directly above your comment here) I’m so ashamed at my lack of restraint 🙁
Hi Graves.
No worries, amigo! The likes of Pat raise the blood pressure of all decent (and coherent thinking) people; she more than deserved it.
Even after I pointed out that calling people “rednecks” and “hicks” is no different than calling them “niggers” or “wops,” she let loose the “hick” bomb again…
I can’t decide if PAT is a Particia, or a Patrick. There’s a kind of androgynous element at work here, I think. PAT, has been very careful not so say anything to suggest male or female, so maqy we have our 1st Trans-Clover here!
Wow my spelling sucks today, lol!
Hi Graves,
I have no idea what Pat’s sex is. I do know she (he) is an authoritarian collectivist, as well as a sloppy thinker and a racist, too!
It’s Pat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiIXNNfpgLY
Hi again, Graves!
I loved the “real Americans” reference, too. As you know, my drive into Roanoke is just under 70 miles, round trip. So an EV with 150 miles best case range like the Nissan Leaf uses, in effect, half a tank of “fuel” to get me downtown and back. Much worse mileage than a Hellcat. But I can refuel the Hellcat in 5 minutes, anywhere. And if I need to go farther than 70 miles without planning ahead, I can. With the Leaf, I have to think about where I’ll recharge – and have time to wait.
Oh, I could get an EV with more range than the Leaf. I’d just have to pay another $7,000 or so to get into the next-least-expensive one (Chevy Bolt) that has a range of around 200 miles, best case. Or $14,000 more to get into a Tesla 3.
Ah yes, my little chickadee!
GTC, I NEEDED to read that!
This Pat has been running rampant spewing his/her/it’s nonsense like an out-of-control child who is allowed to just babble on and on……the kind that when you see in public, and the parent is not doing a thing, you just have to turn to and say “SHUT UP!!!”.
“I don’t deny that EVs are very quick. But they are not economical,”
You appear like most libertarians to have real problems with math. EV 3.5 Miles/KWH. (Typical).
Electricity 10c/KWH(Median & Declining). EV Ops cost 3 Cents/Mile. Gas car 23MPG (Average Compact 2018) Average gas price $2.92/Gallon ( EIA average Summer 2018) ICE Ops cost 12.7 cents/Mile…
Now in planet arithmetic 3.5 < 12.7 Now in Planet Rand, it's whatever you want it to be, but, I prefer to be part of the reality-based community.
So EVs are quicker and cheaper…
Now if you have to go 40 miles to get to the feed store to pick up the mail, that's a problem, but,
GM doesn't design cars for you.
Clover,
If my math is off – and EVs make so much economic sense – then why is it necessary to mandate their sale and subsidize their purchase?
An EV may cost less to recharge, but the cost to buy the thing is much higher – obviating any economic gain.
If you pay more all told, you pay more.
Which of is innumerate, Clover?
And keep in mind: The true cost of your beloved EVs is much higher than advertised, because of the subsidies built into the price. If you and other EV people had to pay full market price – what the car cost to make plus the usual 3-5 percent profit per car – you’d be paying $45,000-plus for something like your Volt.
Regardless, the fact is GM had to resort to give-away lease deals to get them off the lot. Fact. And that was years before the Cruze got cancelled – a fact which I am confident you’re aware of.
You’re easy meat, Clover – but you’re embarrassing yourself in public.
This is akin to my quandry over a pickup, now that the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight (only 4 more months of child support, spousal support goes DOWN considerably per the settlement in 6 months). Diesel versus Gasoline?
The problem is acute in CA, where thanks to the ironically-named “CARB” (California Air Resources Board), which also has made restoring a hot rod almost impossible (unless you can use an out-of-state friend to straw purchase the parts, wonder if Cali(porn)ia will, like ammo or firearms they don’t like which are legal in all other states, make that a ‘heinous’ crime to ‘smuggle’ in as well!). They’ve so messed up Diesel fuel formulation with that “low-sulfur” crap (which, interesting enough, only the Indonesian crude doesn’t require expensive refining processes to produce, and the Brown family, as in the thankfully term-limited out Jerry Brown, and Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Mr. Blum, have EXTENSIVE interests in Indonesian oil companies, do I detect a connection?), the pump price of diesel is typically HIGHER than even ‘premium’!
Methinks if I used diesel extensively enough I’ve either get a bulk account and hopefully get a cheaper price worth it; OR, invest in a trailer with a fuel drum, and fill up in Idaho or Utah when I go there! Somehow I think even THAT would run into legal or regulatory hurdles once I pulled up to the ‘inspection’ station, which is as close to a state “customs” as one can get.
Considering that a new diesel truck can easily run ten grand over a comparable gas model, along with the much higher fuel prices, why anyone would buy a diesel truck in CA escapes me, though a large truck and a diesel engine are just meant for each other! Like King Edward I “Longshanks”, in choosing a bride for his supposedly effeminate and swishy son, Edward II, picked Princess Isabella, daughter of Le Roi Phillipe le Quarte de France, and later deemed the “She-Wolf of France”, knowing that in order to ensure an heir (Edward III), he’d have to “perform the honors” himself, which may have been what he had in mind all along! (and if indeed Isabella looked like Sophie Marceau ca. 1995, who could BLAME him?).
With new trucks, diesels are no longer worth it, ’cause these modern ‘diesels’ no long possess the characteristics which once made diesels so attractive- like efficiency, durability; simplicity; economy; etc.
Modern ‘diesels’ are so bogged down with delicate high-pressure oil-injection (as opposed to a simple old-fashioned injector pump); computerized el;ectronics which they are totally dependent on; emission controls; etc. that they are a nightmare.
Many large fleets that use the light trucks have switched back to gas, ’cause the diesels are no longer worth it.
They’re not reliable (a sensor or an O-ring gets weak, and the damn thing will no longer start); no longer economical to repair; they don’t last like the old ones did; and they don’t get the good mileage that the old ones did. Today, between the crappy MPGs and the significantly higher price of diesel fuel, there’s really little to no advantage at the pump to owning one of these diesels.
About the only people buying them these days, are urban cowboys who want the full effect for their *real man truck*; and those who routinely tow heavy loads, who need the torque.
I used to LOVE diesels…back when they were real diesels….but you couldn’t give me one of these modern ones. They’re an abomination.
And Doug? How the hell do you stay in that freaking communist state?! Tha’s gotta be about the most tyrannical, communist, freedom-hating places on earth. Makes even NY look tame by comparison.
“If my math is off – and EVs make so much economic sense – then why is it necessary to mandate their sale and subsidize their purchase?”
Why was it necessary to put in special tax incentives for SUVs?
“An EV may cost less to recharge, but the cost to buy the thing is much higher – obviating any economic gain.”
Gas costs a lot…I knew a guy at the Pentagon, was driving his Lincoln Navigator from the Delaware shore to Arlington VA, every day. He was blowing through a tank of gas every other day. At the time, He was spending 300/week on fuel. If there were chargers at work, he could have been been buying $40/Week in Electricity.
I suggested he look into springing for a Tesla.
Clover,
What “tax incentives” for SUVs? No such things exist. You may be referring to manufacturer incentives – but that is just discounting, not stealing my money to pay for your EV.
Anyone who buys a Navigator – or a Tesla – is someone who does not have to worry about money… the cost of fuel is therefore an irrelevance. People who spend $50,000 on vehicles (or even $30,000) aren’t people looking to “save money.”
All you’re doing is virtue signaling.
If you wanted to save money, Clover, a $14,000 Mitsubishi Mirage such as the one I just wrote about makes far more economic (and practical) sense than any EV you can buy.
This car can be bought for around $13k, less than half the cost of the least expensive currently available EV – the $30,000 Nissan Leaf, the price of which is massively subsidized.
The Leaf will never “save you money” vs. a car like the Mirage. It also has significant functional gimps which the Mirage does not. It has a maximum best-case range of 150 miles; the Mirage goes more than twice as far. It takes at least 30-45 minutes to recover a partial charge; the Mirage is fully fueled in less than five minutes.
All facts, not arguable.
So why buy the Leaf?
To virtue signal. Look at me! I am “green”… using other people’s green to finance it.
Funny, Patprick, no one had to give me a subsidy when I bought my used Excursion (And I wouldn’t participate in such a scheme if it were offered).
For many years, one actually had to pay a “luxury tax” when buying a large expensive new vehicle (in addition to the other taxes which one was already subject to).
Even now, the more expensive the vehicle, the more in sales tax and registration/property taxes must be paid.
At one point, back when gas was very high, they were offering a break on sales taxes for the purchase of large vehicles which weren’t selling good, in order to “stimulate sales” and prop-up the car industry- which was yet another product of fascism- the state manipulating the free market and redistributing wealth- intervening in people’s finances- which you seem to approve of when it benefits you or a cause which you support…..
PatPend,if your friend could afford all the other expenses of a Lincoln Land Yacht, I suspect fuel costs were at the low end of the list. I’ll bet, he already knows the advantages of the fuel cost trade-off he is making by not buying an EV for primary transport, or do you not give your friends credit for having the intelligence to decide what works best for them?
He will easily be able to agree that, when the power goes out, he can still start his ride and make the drive home, even in a foot of snow and ice, as opposed to not. I am sure if fuel economy were his top-most priority, a Navigator would not be his prime daily driver. If fuel costs are making his budget tight, he doesn’t have the disposable income for a 2nd vehicle just for fuel savings, bragging rights, or whatever. So if he has to choose one or the other, has has already made his choice the one that apparently serves him best. If he has taken your advice to “spring” for a new Tesla, good for him, I wish him all the best. But wishful thinking won’t help any EV in snow and ice storms, blackouts, extreme cold, time constraints for refueling, etc. But these are factors that exist with EVs now, as they exist, and make a poor argument for substituting them for any IC engine transport today. Fuel economy is 1 very tiny aspect of the picture that just doesn’t justify it happening. Buy what suits your fancy according to your own means and taste, but you can never justify my financial subsidy of your overpriced playtoys.
By the way, Clover: Rand was not a Libertarian. You’ve obviously never read her and know little about her. Try to get your facts straight… on anything.
Please. Just once.
Like the rest of civilization really gives a shit how fast an EV climbs Pike’s Peak……PAT, what kind of altruistic bubble do you live in, and where do the rest of us “Real Americans” get one?
“Like the rest of civilization really gives a shit how fast an EV climbs Pike’s Peak…”
Yeah, you utterly fail to understand why racing exists. I’m just going to quote Big Daddy Don Garlits here ““I feel good, real good,” Garlits said. “Well, of course, developing the electric dragster has been a big part of that.”
Now if you want to shine on Big Daddy, please, be my guest, even at his age, he can probably teach you a few lessons in manners.
Meanwhile I’m going to go back to patent work in the field.
Clover,
If the main advantage of an EV is not economy or practicality – but speed – then it is a toy. And while there is nothing wrong with toys, it is beyond obnoxious to force others to pay for your indulgence.
As I’ve already stated, numerous times: The reason EVs have to be mandated and subsidized is because they cost too much to make sense as an economical alternative to IC-engined economy cars.
This is a simple statement of economic fact.
EVs are high-performance luxury-sport cars for affluent virtue-signalers such as yourself – and being force-subsidized via the tax-mulcting of people who cannot afford them.
These aren’t opinions. These are facts. You can’t deal with them, so you hurl epithets.
Well Eric, here is the answer. PAT is neither Patricia nor Patrick, but PAT PENDING. I suspect we are dealing with someone who lacks any creative talent and can only find purpose in other people’s accomplishments, I.E. a govt. employee.
Racing exists to fulfill a need for gratification in the form of competition, either with one’s self, or others. Satisfaction can also be achieved if one finds such competition interesting, enlightening, or beneficial to others.
Or did you mean something else? Quoting Don Garlits in the context you have here, hardly explains anything regarding EVs OR Pike’s Peak. You seem to be overly impressed with other peoples accomplishments, and equally incensed when others are not. You have no clue what I understand, nor is it my responsibility to enlighten you. Your limp-dicked attempts at prick-waving are more ill-mannered than anything I have put to page, primarily because of the disingenuous and evasive manner in which you respond.
Screw your arrogance, conceit, and disdain for other people, for whom without, you would not amount to a fart in a hailstorm.
BTW, Pat Pend, how do you think an EV would stand up to running in the 24 Hours of LeMans? Or perhaps the Isle of Mann TT? I suspect you were a “fan” of Dale Earnhardt, huh? You probably go in for all the modern cons like Nitrofill, E85, TPMS, Airbags, AutoDrive, Lane Assist, Global Warming, Peak Oil, oh the list is endless I’m sure.
“how do you think an EV would stand up to running in the 24 Hours of LeMans? Or perhaps the Isle of Mann TT”
That’s a really good question…
How would an EV perform at 24 hours of LeMans. It depends if I had a budget and a clever engineering team. Let’s say I had about $25M to field a team, and engineering sponsorship by Tesla.
A VW IDMax racer and a battery swap station from Tesla might be quite competitive, or a Tesla P100D Bar with the Battery swap would be interesting…
It took 10 years for the Electrics to dominate at Pikes Peak, I suspect it would take 10 years for the EVs to dominate Le-Mans.
Isle of Man might be a little rougher. The course has a lot of bumps and high spots, the Suspension design requirements for carrying 1000 lbs of battery would probably require some serious engineering there.
I will note, that Diesel/Electric and
Gas/Electric are now categories at LeMans and the Audi R18 e-Tron has competed there.
The optimization between battery mass, swap time at the pits and the vehicle sizing is something I haven’t done. I’ve been working studying Pikes Peak Racers and drag racers. I’m working up the design for a 300 KW controller I can keep in my shirt pocket when it’s not working.
I’m not a fan of any of the drivers, i’m more interested in the tech, but I find it amusing when aging cranky libertarians lose their minds at the new tech.
Pat b “If Headlights can sell on the merits, why is it necessary to mandate their installation and repair?”
Do headlights exist purely by mandate, or due to an actual need?
Or a better question would be, does correlation equal causality? If you answer is yes, to either, you haven’t learned a damned thing about reality, or how things work in this world.
As far as losing one’s mind regarding new tech, you just haven’t lived long enough, nor have you learned that what is possible isn’t always preferable, nor beneficial.
You crow and preen about your shiny new gadgets, but so far haven’t achieved any more maturity than a child with a new toy. Likewise you will discard that toy for the next new toy, never utilizing eve 50% of the potential of the first, primarily because you really have no actual need for 90% of what you want. You are the perfect example how technology has not done a damn thing to create a better society, but rather has corrupted your sense of community and responsibility for each other as human beings, had you any to begin with. You have no idea what any of our roles and experiences have been with anything, let alone technology and it’s impact on the world we live in. Your tunnel vision is you reality and your rationalization only exemplifies you inability to comprehend how truly insignificant you really are. You pat youself and others like you on the back and say “well done lads, we are going to change the face of the Earth one day”. I have news for you, the Earth doesn’t need your help, and I doubt that you would recognize the opportunity should it present itself., let alone care, unless you were to profit in some fashion or another. In your tireless pursuit for “what” and “how”, you never seem to care “why”, or at best only echo someone else’s reasons for doing anything, so long as you get ahead in whatever little game you have going in your head. One day you may have to explain to yourself “why” your hanging upside down on a meat hook, but I’m sure you will be stuck on the “what” and the “how” of the matter, and the “why” really won’t matter then. Enjoy yourself, you deserve it.
PAT B SAYS “Then there is Practicality. Now maybe off in Hickville it’s 100 miles to get supplies for the farm but for real americans i’ts about 20. 80% of all trips are less then 40.”
I think I can speak for most of us REAL Americans here PAT,
FUCK YOU AND THE ELECTRIC DILDO YOU RODE IN ON!
WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO CLASSIFY WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT A “REAL AMERICAN” OR A “REAL ADULT” ?? YOU WOULDN’T LAST 24 GODDAMN HOURS WITHOUT ALL THE FOOD, WATER, AND OTHER BASIC NEEDS PROVIDED BY EVERYONE YOU DISRESPECT AND DISPARAGE HERE. ARE YOU SCARED TO DRIVE BEYOND SIGHT OF THE CITY SKYLINE? WELL, YOU GODDAMN BETTER BE! YOUR FUCKING LACK OF HUMANITY IS ONLY GOING TO EARN YOU A MORE VIOLENT, PAINFUL END, I CAN ONLY HOP[E TO GOD I AM THERE TO SEE IT!
See how easy it is, Pat? Does it look familiar, Pat? It should…look in a mirror!
There you have the mentality of these PC twits (aka “Clovers”)…a smug, self-satisfied false sense of SUPERIORITY. If they want to drive an EV, paid for with their OWN money, manufactured by a company that builds car as one Henry Ford did, the ‘old-fashioned’ way (they “urrrnned” it!), and NOT by lobbying “Warshington” for taxpayer subsidies, grant, tax abatements, and tax credits for their purchasers, many of whom are already well-heeled).
The “farmers”, whom work goddamned hard to make a living which largely FEEDS and clothes your likely fat ass, Pat b, took up “pitchforks” and stuck Lord Cornwallis in the ass with them back in 1781 at Yorktown, and would be willing to take them up and stick YOU in the hiney, as well as the other Dummycrats, libtards, and other stuck-up snots whom PRESUME to dictate to others their motoring choices.
Hey PAT! If you really want to stop wasting ENERGY, advocate the cessation of all automobile production for just 1 year. At roughly 80 barrels of crude oil in energy and materials, per unit, what do you think that will add up to, hmmm?
You see, PAT, over-consumption and disposibility is the ral problem facing our society and current economic lifestyle, not “efficiency by the BTU”, or is that not your responsibility either?
“80% of all trips are less then 40.”
Hmmmm, let’s see: 17 miles to town. About 17 miles driving around in town going to all the various places I need to go. 17 miles to return home. I don’t have enuff fingers and toes to figger it out, but I reckon that thar’d be about 50 miles, yesiree Bob!
I actually drive a lot fewer miles here in Bumblefuck, than I did in the NYC metro area; not only that, but in NY, it could take 2 or 3 hours to go 40 miles……
I literally drive a quarter of the miles I used to drive, since moving to the country. And although individual trips may be longer…they take up far less time.
An EV would not be a practical alternative in either environment- considering the weather; use of A/C, heat, defroster, lights, etc. Time sitting in traffic with those things going; or no option if you run out of juice…. Not to mention that EVs can not match a large pick-up/SUV for carrying capacity; towing, etc.
They are strictly city cars…and only for some cities- as in cities like NY where most people live in apartments and park on the street, there is no way to charge them other than at a charging station, since the majority of people do not have driveways, let alone garages!
Hey dude, lay off the strawman-made-up word that Gillette created 4 days ago in its biased commercial i.e “They are like the peddlers of Toxic Masculinity…” There is no such thing as “Toxic masculinity”. Stop peddling this non-word.
Hi Merc,
The phrase is in currency; it’s necessary to use it to deconstruct it.
This is just crude dog whistling from another alt-right knuckledragger…
Don’t you dare buy an electric car, because you might be associated with Liberal left-wing ideologies.
Keep burning that fossil-fuel!
Hi Peter,
I’m always amused when I am accused of being “alt right.” For advocating non-violent, non-coercive free exchange. Live – and let live.
This isn’t about politics, regardless. It’s about economics. And practicality.
Fossil fuels are cheap, efficient, abundant, convenient and clean-burning in modern cars. What’s the problem, exactly?
I have no issue with EVs, per se – just to make that clear (again). My problem is with manufactured demand, via mandates – and with wealth transfer payments (subsidies) to prop up the economically untenable.
Which is what EVs are. Take away the mandates and the subsidies and what do you honestly think would happen to the EV “market”?
Would you pay $40,000 of your own money to buy something like the Nissan Leaf? Which is what it would cost (probably more) if Nissan had to sell it at a price that reflected its actual cost to manufacturer. $40k… for a car that goes a third as far as as $14k Nissan Versa and takes 5-6 times to recover a partial charge vs. the time it takes to fully refuel an IC car…
Be honest now….
I wonder where Peter think the electricity ultimately comes from to charge the EVs?
Stupid ass…..
Thanks, Nunz!
I wonder whether Peter even knows what “alt right” means…
Who said anything about purely electric vehicles, going into the future?
And yes, into the future, the electric vehicles that will be used, will require less power, as the technology improves… smart ass indeed.
Ah, yes; that illustrious future that never seems to quite materialize; in which that technology which “is just around the corner” will allay all fears and solve all problems…and overcome the laws of physics, and the schemes of politicians/tyrants.
Where a mix of fossil-fuel powered engines and electric motors which are also ultimately powered by fossil fuels, will magically achieve the very same things we have now…only at much greater cost, and much less autonomy.
Or will they use hydrogen- which takes more fossil fuel to create the equivalent energy than if that fuel were just used directly? Or perhaps nukular power!- So that we can trade the terrible effects of plant food (CO2) for the joys of killing off half of the earth every time something goes wrong? But of course, nothing will go wrong, because nothing goes wrong in that illustrious future, ’cause people are careful and all…..
Alright, alright- sorry- I know you must just be getting this la-la EV crap from your 6th-grade science teacher, and the talking heads on the tee-vee.
“Ah, yes; that illustrious future that never seems to quite materialize…”
How are you chatting with me?
Smartphone?
I’m using a Samsung tablet right now.
“Alright, alright- sorry- I know you must just be getting this la-la EV crap from your 6th-grade science teacher, and the talking heads on the tee-vee.”
Not at all, and as far as my information gathering goes, I’m a free thinker, that thinks wholistically and chooses a wide range of information sources.
I wouldn’t have a smartphone…..
So, we’ve gone from predictions of colonies on the Moon, to typing to strangers while we have a phone right next to us/in our hand; and the average person being so obsessed by things with screens that they probably wouldn’t notice whether they were living in a colony on the Moon or in a yellow submarine.
If you are a free thinker (as we here pretty much all are) then I find it very coincidental that you would buy into the present hype about EVs, verbatim- that is pushed by the media and the government; or that you would tout technologies which do not exist as possible solutions to problems which also don’t exist.
The one thing we may somewhat agree on, is the US’s wars for oil and other resources- but even that is more of a deception FOR the morons who fight those wars, as China already uses 1.5 times as much ‘lectricity as the US- and thanks to schemes like the Paris Treaty and it’s carbon credits, etc. WE will essentially pay to supply China and India’s rapidly growing energy needs, while forcing our own to decline- so regardless of who is stealing the oil, and whose currency is being used (Not that it matters, as it’s all funny-money) every dirty hand is getting a slice.
Peter,
It is disingenuous to compare a smartphone with a car. The smartphone does not weigh 3,000-plus pounds nor does its battery have to move anything. Batteries are ideal for powering small electronic devices. They are terrible for powering cars because they simply do not and cannot contain sufficient energy to keep the car moving (as compared with gas) and cost too much and take far too long to recharge.
How is it progress to replace a car that can be refueled almost anywhere in minutes with a car that requires 5-6 times as long (best case) using specialized and expensive equipment which only exists in a very few places?
EVs are interesting – but fundamentally, toys.
And even for smart phones the batteries have a lot to be desired. Apple by itself has probably spent hundreds of millions on battery tech. Yet all that, my iphoneSE still gets hot and needs to be recharged at least once per day, more if I am actually using it. Now that its over two years old, the capacity of the battery is only 85% of what it was. It will only get worse. I now take the charger cord everywhere because if I don’t it will run out of power before I return home.
People are crazy to think the majority of cars will be battery powered. It just doesn’t work.
My god, your replies are characterized by your own disingenuous prolix, hypocrisy, bias, appeal to emotion, failure to keep up with the thread of the discussion and general Flim Flam…
In short, just a lot of wibble wobble.
Nunzio was expressing his general scepticism about the progress of technology, or lack of, and I was just merely pointing out smartphones and tablets as an example, as to how far computers have progressed in the last twenty years, along with their power sources.
Have you got it now Eric?
Pepe Bocca, You miss The Point Nunzio has made very clear. It’s the lack of progress made by society, in spite of all the technology, garners skepticism. Your repetetive ejaculation of the phrases “wibble wobble” and “have you got it now” serve to prove his point. You and PAT PEND should go masturbate with your fellow accolites in purple sneakers.
“It is disingenuous to compare a smartphone with a car. The smartphone does not weigh 3,000-plus pounds nor does its battery have to move anything. Batteries are ideal for powering small electronic devices. ”
The correct comparison is comparing a smartphone to an IBM Mainframe computer.
A Mainframe in 1972 had 24K of Memory, 30 MB of disk cost $20 Million and weighed 40 tons. Yet technical progress puts a smartphone at $200 into a pocket sized format with GB of storage.
Cars have on a gas P/W ratio doubled out of the engines in 40 years, while Electrics are improving 7%/year, every year. While you whine about 2008, 10 years have gone by.
Don’t worry, the world is continuing to leave you behind. Has been for 40 years, will continue.
Clover,
Are you ever going to deal with the fundamental question? If EVs can sell on the merits, why is it necessary to mandate their manufacture and pay people to buy them?
This is not “whining.” It is a simple, reasonable question – one which people such as yourself never answer directly, because the answer proves my point.
I have been covering the car business since the early ’90s – and have been hearing the same line… a breakthrough is just around the corner… costs are coming down… etc.
That’s 30 years, Clover…. and today’s EVs are still too expensive – and too gimped – to make it on their own merits.
Fact.
It’s got to be driving you nuts.
“If EVs can sell on the merits, why is it necessary to mandate their manufacture”
If Headlights can sell on the merits, why is it necessary to mandate their installation and repair?
Clover,
This is perhaps the most risible thing you’ve written thus far:
“If Headlights can sell on the merits, why is it necessary to mandate their installation and repair?”
It isn’t necessary.
Headlights did sell long before any requirement – and still would, absent one. Because most people see value in being able to see after dark.
The fact that some people might not buy them – or would attempt to drive at night without them – is a non sequitur, Clover. More than enough people would buy them, at market price, to make them economically viable on the merits and absent any kind of rule or decree – because headlights are useful and even necessary.
Their cost is also in line with their value.
EVs, in contrast, are unnecessary – just for openers. One can get around not only perfectly well but better and cheaper in an IC car than in an EV.
This is the key fact – which you either aren’t smart enough to grok or to dishonest to concede.
EVs simply cost far too much relative to any “savings” in re fueling them – and have functional gimps on top of that which make them unappealing to most people. Put another way, there are too few people willing to spend their own money on EVs to make them viable without mandates and subsidies.
These aren’t my opinions, Clover. They are facts.
How many times must I explain this to you?
An even more fundamental problem with EVs, is that since they require just as much energy to propel them as a convential vehicle of the same weight and aerodynamics, and since that energy ultimately comes from the same sources whether it powers an IC-engined car and is burned at it’s point of use, or whether it powers an EV and is burned remotely at a generator, why do greentards BS themselves that somehow EVs are ‘zero-emission’ and will somehow save the earth from the catastrophe which they have been led to [falsely]believe will occur due to those emissions?
OHhhh…so they mean that the EVs produce no emissions where THEY happen to- so they can live in densely-populated cities and enjoy a ‘clean’ environment, while relocating their waste/pollution to somewhere else- like where the hicks and rednecks live, because ‘they’re ebil’ dontchyahknow?!
That is like farting in someone’s face and claiming it doesn’t smell because there was no sound; or decrying the enslavement of schvatzes, while supporting the universal slavery of everyone. (Oh, wait…Pat does that!)
Headlamps Pat? That’s the example you want to use. Ok Pat, headlamps were one of the first things government meddled with. It froze headlamp design and performance to 1939 technology. It essentially stayed that way with little change until 1986! Even now many aspects of head lamp regulations are still the dark ages.
….And before incandescent headlamps, people would hang lanterns on buggies, and afix them to trains…because there was a genuine need- and you don’t have to prod people to fill a genuine need.
Morning, Nunz!
People like Pat are paralytics; mentally gimped. Yet belligerent know-it-alls, at the same time. Cognitively dissonant defectives who are so badly tetch’d in the head that they will actually (as in Pat’s case) not notice let alone be embarrassed by the hypocrisy of hurling the “racist” bomb and then, almost in the same breath, their dismissal of people who have expressed disagreement with them over an issue that has nothing to do with race as “hicks” and “rednecks.”
Hi Ya, Eric!
The sad thing is: Pat’s MENTALity/behavior/modus-operandi has become the norm in this day when people just parrot what they are bombarded with by the government schools and media. People who can actually see the chinks in the armor; who can think; who can spot the contradictions and absurdities of the propaganda, and who care enough so as to not just ‘go along to get along’, have become rare.
It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t always like this. Just a few generations ago, this crap could never fly because even the most country-fried rube had enough grounding in reality so as to not be bamboozled by ridiculous concepts and fairy tales.
At least that’s what my wife/sister says… 😉
Hey Nunz! I believe they are what is referred to as “technozombies”, correct me if I’m wrong. Aldous Huxley nailed society on the head more than 5 decades ago.
Gee, another “free thinker” with the exact same opinions as the universities, media, government, and everyone else. Interesting how the people that defend EVs also happen to support authoritarianism, collectivism, socialism, leftism, etc etc etc.
Did Samsung, or Apple for that matter, FORCE anyone to buy “Smartphones”, or tablets, or a goddamned thing? No, they designed, manufactured, and SOLD them, COMPETING in the marketplace! It’s the desire to build better and/or cheaper precisely because it’s “Brutal” out there…innovate or perish!
From Wonderland, the same place as his knowledge of fuel sources and physics. Some how “technocrats” will alter the Earthly reality (i.e. gravity, friction, etc.) that it takes “x” amount of energy to do “y” amount of work. The rationalization that it will “one day” do so, is used to justify having what they want, when they want it, and with the help of “other people’s money” if possible.
The more Utopians that join in the “vision”, the less they will have to listen to the objections of others who do not care to fund, even partially, their fantasies.
The govt. is their tool to force others to financially support that which they otherwise would not.. …peer pressure, with the armed support of Uncle.
Once I realized that what we are told is not what is desired everything made sense. There’s the sales pitch and the sales pitch does not have to make rational sense it simply has to get people to buy in without knowing what they are really buying into.
I keep repeating myself but it’s not the electric cars the powers that be want nor do they want wind and solar or anything else they claim to be for. They want want ever will have the technocrats managing society. Whatever can be controlled, rationed, measured, etc.
Remember the old goal? “Too cheap to meter”. Whatever happened to that? Roads and sidewalks heated with electricity to melt the snow. What happened to that goal? Well that goal didn’t serve the purposes of the utopians and the power structure so it went away. That’s an old time free market idea. We will make everyone not poor by making everything cheaper and cheaper.
But where’s the control in that? How does one engineer a society where everything is so cheap people can get by on their own? Can’t be done.
So we get what we get today instead.
Technologies are pushed because they offer control. Technocrats know these things won’t work for today’s standard of living. They aren’t supposed to. But they do give technocrats power and more power to those that control the technocrats.
EVs; solar; wind, etc- not just control….but more importantly [to them] an excuse to let the old technologies and infrastructures crumble. And once that is gone…it can not be replaced, for it took 100 years to build, at a time when society was homogenous, and wealth was easily created, and a good deal of freedom was still extant.
I think they are just using all of this not-ready-for-prime-time technology as an excuse to let those old infrastructures collapse; knowing ull well that there will be no viable replacement for them (their ultimate goal) and no way of resurrecting what was lost.
that prong of attack does seem to exist however I don’t think it is working that well. A lot of people are still learning the older technologies all on their own.
Ultimately force will need to be applied to get rid of the old.
If you want some heartwarming things to watch checkout the youtube videos where people are pulling vehicles out of fields, yards, and junkyards and getting them running again.
I watched a couple of a series where an early 80s Mustang is pulled out of a junkyard and eventually put back on the road. Sometimes it’s just someone with a salvage business looking to sell the vehicle but in any case its being done.
I’ve seen some videos on Youtube like you mention, Brent. Most of ’em are BS. They show ya someone finding an older car that isn’t rusted away, and whose body isn’t dented up, and then they manage to get it running — thumbs up, and kudos and all of that– but what they don’t show is the tens of thousands of dollars it would take to make that heap into even a modest daily driver- i.e. replacing all the seals and weatherstripping, etc. in an old car that sat that long; the automatic tranny blowing out after having been dry for a decade; the knock that soon develops in the motor (which is the reason the car was junked in the first place, if it wasn’t totaled) ; the insulation cracking off of the brittle wires that have been exposed tro the elements for a decade or two; etc.
Not to mention that if the car or it’s parts might possibly be of any interest to more than one person in the world, the yard is going to part it, or sell it whole for a whole lot.
It’s like the pawn shop show a friend was telling me about T’other night…or the one where they show people buying the contents of storage units….reality is quite different.
It’s like this vid I watched a few days ago: These two guys travel from GA to OH to buy an early 80’s crew cab Chevy with an enclosed car-hauler box on the back (The thing is like 40′ long!)- in really nice original condition- been ditting a few years.
I’m thinking maybe they paid a few grand for it. Turns out, they paid $20K !!!! THEN, before they get ten miles, it quits on them. The previous comes and helps ’em out; they change the fuel pump. It quits again. So they run it off of a portable fuel tank, as the truck’s tank is probably full of crud. Then they blow a tire.
Turns out, these clueless fools are MAD at the guy who sold it to them, because of these little minor problems that should be expected with any old vehicle.
But they fly in, and think they can hop in a 30+ year-old vehicle that’s been sitting for years, and just drive it back to GA from OH as if it’s brand new.
I mention that just to illustrate the utter clulessness of the people making these videos- doesn’t matter if it’s Hollywood fantasy or real people, the visions one gets watching these things, vs. reality, is quite stark. (And most of the commenters on the above-mentioned video were siding with the clueless purchasers of that truck!)
In reality, there’s a lot to do on an older car that was kept reasonably well….never mind one that’s been junked or abandoned in the woods. (Continued)
(Continuation)….But having said that Brent, what I meant when I said “No way of resurrecting what was lost”, is that once the factories that build ICE cars are shut down; once; once the science of manufacturing engines evaporates; once the electrical, and mechanical and design (etc.) engineers become scarce; once the gasoline distribution network crumbles; once experienced mechanics are gone, etc. etc. it is not something that can just be picked back up on and set back in motion again- as it depends on many disciplines and specialties; many specialized facilities; many skills- it’s not as if someone can just go out and build a car from scratch with raw materials.
Jjust think of all the industries and disciplines involved!
And since the stated goal of these enviro-nazi policies is to destroy capitalism…..doesn’t it look like this is exactly what is happening?
I was listening to a commentary on The Simpsons cartoon once- and the speaker was talking about how they are computer animated now; and how that he preferred to have them hand-animated, but that the industry switched to computer animation, and as a result, it is now impossible to find anyone who possesses the skill to hand-draw them.
And that’s just a simple thing compared to manufacturing a car, and all of it’s related support systems to make driving inexpensive and feasible.
Heck, imagine trying to find a bookkeeper today who knows how to operate an old mechanical adding machine- or someone who knows how to fix that machine; or who could manufacture a new one if your old one got busted beyond repair…
Or a secretary who was adept with an old Underwood typewriter!
And even those things would be relatively hard to bring back if/when the electronics crash….as how many today are experts on the workings of that adding machine, and could get together with someone who could design the machinery to build the parts…who could find the guys to assemble and wire it all up and make it work properly, etc.?
Hey Brent, just out of curiosity: Do you know how to use a slide rule? (I’ll bet YOU do!)
I met a 16 year-old last year who can run a CNC machine. I was pretty impressed….but to do machining and cutting by hand? He’d be clueless…..
There are a few people every aspect of making this or that. A car can run on ethanol if need be. No need for big oil if things get that bad. People in Cuba kept their cars going for decades without any infrastructure worth a damn.
I’m not talking about making cars nice again here. I’m talking about getting so go from A to B. You don’t need specific factory like weather stripping and trim bits to make a car do its job.
It’s going to take killing a lot of people to fully break things. It’s going to take force. That’s all I am saying.
Poverty, big brother, and communism won’t be enough.
Brent, No rust in Cuba.
Most of the viable old cars here are gone already.
Newer ones are too delicate, with all of the electronics/turbos/10-speed A/T’s to last like the old ones did.
Most of the viable old ‘uns are already at a premium- even just as drivers. It’ll get worse as people catch on that the newer ones don’t last/are too expensive to keep going (This is somewhat happening already)
And thank the Chimp, for Cash-For-Clunkers.
But I was really talking about resurrecting the industry, in my initial post.
If this EV BS continues, 10 years from now, there will be no car industry in America. It’ll all be cell-phones on wheels, made in China and India….and like I said, once the industry and infrastructure are gone, it ain’t coming back any time soon- even if all regs were removed.
Unfortunately, Detroit is a dying dinosaur, nearing the end of it’s long James Cagney-like death march. 🙁 (Or, more properly- it has committed suicide- with help from Uncle).
I love too, gtc, how they want to “save the earth” so badly- always at the expense of others- and so long as it involves complicated technologies which don’t even exist; and foster more control and surveillance- but the idea of simply not traveling around so much- i.e. living and working in the same places or close proximity; living near one’s family and friends; living in the type of environment in which you enjoy being most of the time; living a sustainable lifestyle that doesn’t involve driving/traveling tens of thousands of miles per year, is just not an option that is on the table….
Funny how that is, eh?
Shouldn’t people who believe that cars are ruining the earth, give up driving one, and live in such a manner that they can walk/ride a bike where ever they need to go?
Something is wrong here. Instead of THAT, they want to change and or limit how and what we drive, and what it costs us to do so….and even if we ignore the moral implications of that, it still accompklishes nothing, as ultimately, just as much energy is still used…only in their prefered model, the by-product of that energy use is discharged remotely, rather than at the source- so that those of us who lead clean lives in the sticks, and drove very little, can be straddled with the exhausts which they have been freed from in their cities.
It’s all about redistribution.
Redistribute the wealth.(Make someone else pay)
Redistribute the pollution.
Globalization has made it very difficult for extended families to live near each other in the west because one place doesn’t have most everything any longer.
There are some anti-motoring people who live without cars. Some. But there are many of them who are also control freaks and demand you live as they have chosen. They make walk the talk but they are still busy body control freaks.
I’ve lived here in Blacksburg & Christiansburg since I moved here in 1989 to go to VPI (now calling itself VA TECH :P). I have witnessed a lot of decent people turn into awful people due to the crap social environment of this place and the corruption of college money in a rural area. One favorite was my Calculus instructor who was age, very attractive, intelligent, self-assured, mature. Wouldn’t know her to talk to her now, just another SJW with a hate for cars or nearly everything that has supported her lifestyle for the pat 3 years.
I don’t get how people think they got to be where they ALL are without the vast industrial and social network that once made this country strong and a damned great place to be. On top of that, doing all they can to undermine the foundations of everything as if “only using the local farmer’s market” and banning motorized transportation would save the planet. You what would save the planet? Annihilation of the human race, and some crazy fuck might just try it, or worse a quantum computer developed by MI*T or any of the other “geniuses” who are going to worship their own “magical” creations. I know my imagination hasn’t even scratched the surface, but I still do what I do as I watch others turn prosperity into utter chaos and misery. It honestly doesn’t have to be this way.
GTC, the West is committing suicide. The communism/socialism which had been ever so subtly and gradually pushed for more than half of this country’s existence, has been ingrained enough now so that there is no resistance to it- and thus has been on the fast track for the last few decades, and is now in the home stretch.
People send their kids to these filthy schools, when they are at their most impressionable period- not knowing or caring what is taught to them- only caring if they will have a good time getting drunk and laid; and if they will get a piece of paper that will make them another face in the vrowd of 50 million others so they can compete for some $35K a year government job (Including their daughters, who will never be fit wives/mothers- but rather, just “partners”).
I love too, how these people, like the stupid cunt teacher you mentioned, feel free to deprive their charges of the opportunities and lifestyle which they can now enjoy due to that capitalism which they so despise….but how they themselves will not give up their Prius to ride the bus; nor their nice home in the ‘burbs for an apartment in the ‘hood amongst those wonderful “underprivileged minorities” whom they profess to love so much (I mean, why live among these dreadful “raciss” white people, when ya can live in Crackville and enjoy the company of the people whom they tout as being so superior?)
The kids coming up today have no chance. This stuff is pounded into them from every side- through social(ist) media; Hollywood; and academia. With all the technology and “communication”, no one has time to think anymore. They can not go 10 minutes without the outside stimulation of artificial sights and sounds which shape their reality more so than the world before their eyes.
The Babyboomers and Gen-Xers are almost as corrupted too.
Like Lenin said, conquered from within- and 99.8% of the population are ignorant of what has happened, and would deny it has, till their death.
There will be no revolution for liberty; the only revolution we will see here, is the cultural revolution which is already well underway….and we’ve already lost that one. All we can do at this point, is avoid capture. We’re among the minority whose minds who have escaped the capture of NWO- but they’re making it so that if you don’t avoid bodily capture, then they have your mind and your body, because the body requires property and liberty to keep the mind alive and free.
Hi Graves,
We all know this “type.” They want sacrifices to be made, all right – but not by them. The austerity (or expense) is always to be imposed on others – who cannot (as an example) afford a $30,000-plus electric car, but never mind. Let them walk or move into an apartment. They can’t afford that, either? Let them eat cake – so to speak.
This psychosis abounds. It manifests in other areas, too – the obvious one being with regard to guns. The gun-grabbers want to grab your guns – not theirs. Or at least, not the guns of the goons who provide them protection.
I suspect this is going to come to blows.
Eric, the overlords have already got 95% of the public blowing them….
Hiya Nunz…
Yup; have you been following “Pat’s” posts? Her mouth must be awfully sore.
:O = blower’s cramp, do you get it? hahaha!
Furthermore it’s about the government robbing you in the form of taxes and then giving it to millionaires who Model the Model S and to virtue signaling liberals who purchase the Model 3.
It is another form of tyranny.
” To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson.
“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom.
Hi Peter,
Lovely – but what has that to do with whether EVs make practical or economic sense?
Wibble wobble # 2.
JohnZ was expressing his ideology, of libertarian thought, and his repulsion of so-called tyrannical governments, with that quote from Thomas Jefferson.
And i was just reflecting on that, with a quote of my own, from one of my favourite philosophers, Krishnamurti, and his take on freedom and liberty.
Have you got it now Eric?
” To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson.”
“To Keep a man in slavery for his natural life and that of his children is my profit”–Thomas Jefferson…
Somehow a man who kept slaves, is really not my idol for anything involving freedom
Clover,
What Jefferson did – or did not – do is immaterial as regards what is being done.
Funny.
It’s amazing how Libertarians quote Jefferson as some sort
of wonderful expert on Freedom as he stood there with
his whip and gun in hand.
Libertarians whining about how taxation is immoral slavery but
slavery? Oh Slavery, that was something to forget about.
All those psuedo-libertarians with the confederate flags and screaming “Free-dumb” whining about the Tyranny of the Federal Government but then saying “Jefferson Davis, well that slavery thing was really individual choice”…
I’d really like once for some psuedo-libertarian to say “Slavery was an immoral institution. Slavery was Evil. Slavery was wrong and corrupted labor markets”… None of them will.
Clover,
Whether Jefferson himself was perfect is irrelevant as regards the validity of the quote in question.
Note that no one argued Jefferson was an avatar of moral perfection.
I’ve railed against slavery – all forms of it – for decades. You, on the other hand, only object to certain varieties of it.
So you give an historical example of how politicians and the social elite are hypocrites, and this is news? I don’t think any of us here “idolize” any politician, nor any hypocrite, not even the ones that are not politicians, for that matter.
No, I gave an example of how Jefferson engaged in a moral crime before God and Man.
Every Libertarian goes on and on about the Evil Slavery of Taxes and Mandates. Then suddenly they get all wishy-washy moral relativist and you have to understand the time…
I bet you can’t stand up and say “Slavery was wrong, it was evil, it was immoral and that it needed to be ended immediately by any means neccessary”.
Clover,
Agreed, slavery was a hideous evil… and still is. Yet you endorse it. For what else is forcibly taking the product of my labor, or asserting ownership over my person by controlling me, telling me what (as an example) I am allowed to do with my money if not slavery?
Think, Clover: Government (that is, other people – who constitute its apparatchiks) decree what we may and may not do with our very bodies; claim a large portion of the product of our minds and bodies; decree – at bayonet point – whom we may and may not associate with, do business with and how we are allowed to live our lives in general. We are not allowed to ever fully own anything except the clothes on our backs and other trivial personal possessions, because we are forced to pay never-ending taxes for the conditional privilege of being allowed to use things like our homes and cars and so on. In fact, the government is the entity which truly owns our homes and cars and so on.
That is the functional essence of slavery, Clover. You – like other government-schooled bots – are blinkered by your indoctrination and only see “slavery” when it is the more obvious chattel variety. But it is a distinction without much difference.
And those differences grow smaller and smaller on account of people like you, who demand an increase in the slavery of others, for their benefit – not realizing that by doing so, they also further enslave themselves . ..
Your “hick” antagonist, from “redneckia.”
“Agreed, slavery was a hideous evil… and still is.”
So are you willing to stand up and say “Lincoln and the Republicans were right to send the Union army to the south to burn and slaughter the slavers until they surrendered and signed the 15th Amendment.”?
Are you willing to stand up and say that around your neighbors there in Hickville?
“Government (that is, other people – who constitute its apparatchiks) decree”
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,,,,
Take it up with your congressmember.
Clover,
You apparently do not know much history – other than the hagiographical account, at any rate. Lincoln was a virulent racist (easily documented) and all for maintaining slavery (and offered to do so) provided the Southern states did not secede (as the colonies seceded from the British empire).
Few in the North were willing to fight to “free the slaves.” There were draft riots. They fought to enshrine the union – and a centralized state.
Grant’s wife owned slaves – and held them until the end of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the North…. it was a war measure, intended to militarily undermine the South.
Facts.
In re “consent of the governed.” Read Spooner. I don’t recall consenting to it. Where is my signature on a contract – one not signed under duress?
And, again… “hickville.”
This from the guy who accuses me of racism. Fascinating.
“Lincoln was a virulent racist”
Well that makes all Republicans virulent racists because Lincoln founded the party…
as for hickville. It’s a place, not an ethnic nationality. All you have to do is move, get some shoes, take a shower and nobody will know
Clover,
You evade dealing with the fact that the war was fought by the North not to end slavery but to consolidate the union. It was not a noble crusade; it was power politics – and Lincoln was as determined as Nathan Bedford Forrest that blacks be kept in their place.
As far as Republicans: I am not defending them – you were.
And you triple down on the use of derogatory terms for whites that are in the same category as “nigger.”
What a vile person you are.
Pat,
“I bet you can’t stand up and say “Slavery was wrong, it was evil, it was immoral and that it needed to be ended immediately by any means necessary”.”
Every libertarian believes that slavery is wrong and evil, that you think otherwise indicates that you are unaware of libertarian theory. BTW, libertarian thinkers and writers such as Lysander Spooner, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry David Thoreau, etc… were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement.
Opposition to slavery is inherent in the concept of self-ownership which, along with the non-aggression principle, forms the basis of libertarian theory. Yes, every libertarian agrees with all of the above quote except the final qualification. It is immoral, for instance, to murder hundreds of thousands of non “slavers” in pursuit of that goal.
Jeremy
“Every libertarian believes that slavery is wrong and evil,”
Yet you say nothing when Nunzio espouses the ideas that slavery was not wrong.
Clover,
A person who repeatedly derides others as “hicks” and “rednecks” has lost any standing to virtue signal on the matter of racism.
And where, prey tell Pat, did I ever espouse the idea that “slavery is not wrong”?
I said that those in the past who viewed jigs as not quite human “may have been on to something”- but then countered any idea of condoning slavery by stating that I would not even treat an animal that way.
You, on the other hand, continue to advocate and advance slavery for all; only through the auspices of the state instead of by that of private plantation owners and businesses- but what you advocate is no less slavery, and no less of a crime.
YOU only oppose private slavery, and when it is imposed on moolies- but are more than content to tolerate and promote it when it is applied to all at the hands of certain men who you deem to possess moral rights which the rest of us don’t possess, just by reason of the fact that some cast a vote for them.
You are honestly the most hypocritical person I have ever encountered….
Funny, Pat- you seem to be repulsed by the idea of limited slavery which was practiced in the past- but yet you advocate the very same thing on a broad basis today; only, I suppose you would justify it by citing the fact thaty today the slaves can cast a vote for which master they prefer.
You don’t seem to realize that there is no real difference between confiscating a part of the fruit of someone’s labor vs. standing over them with a whip and just giving them back some scraps after the work is done.
You don’t seem to realize that there is no difference between a court deciding who raises your children, and forcing you to pay for the ‘privilege’, as opposed to a plantation owner selling your children or otherwise decreeing their disposition.
You don’t seem to realize that there guns wielded by badged hooligans ; SWAT teams and prisons are no better than overseers and whips and bloodhounds when used against those who have not done violence to anyone nor their property.
Or maybe you just don’t care- as long as some outward facade of in-their-best-interest is maintained; and facilities are monolithic and clean; and the violence which you know is there, is usually kept just below the surface……
You think Jefferson is a hypocrite (and no one here idolizes him)- but YOU are just as much of a hypocrite, if not more so.
And Jefferson wasn’t necessarily being hypocritical. One has to remember, that most didn’t consider knee grows to be quite “people” back then. [They may’ve been on to something there! 🙂 ]
Although, such is not a justification- as I wouldn’t treat an animal that way……
Is that quote even real??? I’ve been Googling and can not find such attributed to Tommy J. Perhaps it’s from a revisionist history book…the kind which villifies all white men; glorifies communists and tyrants; and says that 90% of famous people who ever lived were gay……
” One has to remember, that most didn’t consider knee grows to be quite “people” back then. [They may’ve been on to something there! ? ]”
Please say this in public, on any street in America.
Surprise, surprise! So you advocate violence and censorship for the expressing of unpopular ideas- just like you advocate violence in order to control everything else.
Well, you’re defending the people then with whom you have a lot in common, because such people have a proclivity towards violence. Perhaps you are even one of them, since you love violence so muc, and delight in mob-rule and censorship of public speech, “gnomesain?” [Hehe, borrowed that one from Eric!]
Still waiting for a citation for that Jefferson quote, Pat.
Ah yes…the mantra of the LIBTARD…when nothing else works, place the RACE CARD.
Jefferson did what many like him did…owned SLAVES. SO EFFIN’ WHAT? That was the practice of HIS day, NOT ours!
I’m sure a libtard smartass like yourself would have quickly gotten challenged to a duel, as was ALSO the custom of the time, and caught a bullet, and died a pompous fool.
“Fossil fuels are cheap, efficient, abundant, convenient and clean-burning in modern cars. What’s the problem, exactly?”
Well, if you abandon your US-Centric view, you might realize oil is priced in Dollars which are quite expensive for countries that don’t print dollars. Countries like China
or switzerland or India or Japan. So let’s say China looks at Oil as a big expense,
paid to terrorist supporting muslims in the Arab World. Those Oil Sheiks spread money around to people like Bin Laden and party in Miami, they don’t rocka in Osaka.
So, China has already decided that all cars in China will be Electric, and China is the worlds largest car market and China is the market GM is chasing for.
Now if you believe GM shouldn’t chase markets overseas, you are welcome to
voice the idea that GM shouldn’t compete in international markets but if you believe
US companies should make products that will sell overseas, then you should cheer
Cadillac in trying to get into the biggest car market in the world.
“Well, if you abandon your US-Centric view, you might realize oil is priced in Dollars which are quite expensive for countries that don’t print dollars. Countries like China.”
I was going to make that point too.
As an Australian, who has spent some time in the US, and compared that experience with developing countries I’ve also lived in, I find it breathtaking, as to how ignorant Americans are, in regards to what else is going on in the world.
Featured on TV here in Australia last year, was a brief 5 minute TV clip, from some Variety Show in the US, where they decided to go on the street, with a map of the world perched on a tripod, and ask people passing by, where different countries are in the world, and the answers were so pathetic, it was extraordinary.
Until, this one woman came along and couldn’t point out her own country on a global map!
How are those mandatory vaccines going for you down there? And your environmental police banning turbos on cars?
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-anti-vaccination-movement-leads-to-disease-outbreaks-120312#1
How are those whooping cough outbreaks going for you?
I don’t ordinarily care for social darwinism, but, I figure
if you have antivaxxers, have their kids all go to the same schools. A few waves of measles, chicken pox, rubella and pertussis should resolve them as a social problem.
Abstinence is not a inherited genotype and neither is anti-vaxxing.
Clover,
Pretty much everyone here – excepting coercive collectivists such as yourself – is opposed to government schools, believes parents are responsible for their kids only and have no right to parent other people’s kids, without the consent of those kids’ parents.
So: Vaccinations are up to the parents; other parents ought to be free to associate (or have their kids associate) or not as they see fit.
Which they can’t do without the threat of social services kidnapping their children under auspices of “neglect” or “child abuse”, more govt.excuses to trample our civil liberties.
Why worship the state and its “experts”? Laziness?
The idea that vaccines are all good is absurd. But anyone who does so much as look at the real information (oddly enough filed with the government) knows that vaccines are a risk and reward equation.
The side effect possibilities, even the severe ones, are known. We’re just supposed to pretend they do not exist. There’s a reason why government takes the liability for vaccines and makes it exceedingly difficult to collect. In any sort of fair civil court vaccine manufacturers could be bankrupted. But as a result of not having liability we have numerous vaccines for illnesses that had been greatly reduced in incidence and were easily treated. But the risk of the vaccinations, especially the compound risk, remains.
And remember government pretty much forces all or nothing on vaccines. Because it only allows things like religious exceptions. Not ‘well this one is worth the risk but this one is not’. So we have things like mandated chickenpox vaccination. Of course that means mom or dad doesn’t have to take a few days off work for jr’s illness. Herd productivity. Which is why the life changing side effects don’t matter, because the overall herd productivity increases. So what if a few people are damaged when the herd makes more money for the owners?
Nor do we advocate “free education”- unless the person providing said education voluntarily agrees to do provide it, whether directly or by paying for it.
Pat, will you take personal responsiblity if the truth ever comes out about someone’s kid dying from SIDS; or their life being greatly diminished due to autism; or them getting cancer at some point due to one of those filthy vaccines which you would force upon them?
[Yes, cancer. Many older doctors have stated that they never saw a case of cancer in an unvaccinated person!)
What about those people who died from the Swine Flu in the mid 70’s? The one thing all of the fatalities had in common, was that they had all been vaccinated. No unvaccinated person died.
No, you wouldn’t take responsibility….you’d just say “It was the best information we had at the time” or “they didn’t tell us the truth” or “I was deceived”- and I doubt you’d even feel any guilt that what you advocate prevented others from doing what they knew to be right; and which would have saved their/their child’s life or health.
As opposed to vaccines as I am, I would NEVER advocate prohibitibing you nor anyone from vaccinating themselves or their charges. Why do you think it is your moral right to decree the opposite?
Does the concept of a human being being free to make his own decisions, and to live his conscience before God [or the Devil, or “nature” or whomever] mean absolutely nothing to you?
Pat,
So – essentially – we should accept more restrictions and expense, for the sake of “fightin’ trrr”?
Will the elites in government also accept similar restrictions and expense applied to themselves?
China is an authoritarian state and EVs dovetail nicely with that because they are far more easily controlled than IC cars.
“So – essentially – we should accept more restrictions and expense, for the sake of “fightin’ trrr””
Well, if the GOP voters would have stopped the Bush administration
from building the TSA, demanding REALID, putting checkpoints everywhere, building armored shells on every federal building and spending $3 Trillion fighting Terrorists, you might have a point but
until GOP voters stop supporting Torture, TSA and paramilitary cops everywhere, i’m not going to believe that complaint.
But, i’m just saying as far as gas/diesel goes, people in China don’t like paying for that stuff in dollars.
They can pay for it in Yuan for all I care…but in the ‘workers’ paradise, the hundreds of millions toil for chump wages and the local oligarchs have gotten hugely rich! You’d been surprised how many BILLIONAIRES are Chinese. The fruits of a ‘managed’ economy.
And if living in a socialist dictatorship is so appealing to you, perhaps you go there and try it out for yourself.. No? Well then we don’t really give a rat’s ass how you much admire the attempts by US business to emulate their policies!
To your first point, regarding your membership of the alt-right, I’m referring to your economic arguments, not your broader social position… it seems to be a common thread, and that is, whenever I argue a specific point with people of the alt-right, they go off on various misdirections and irrelevant tangents.
If you don’t like the tag, alt-right, maybe I can change it to avid Ayn Rand fanatic.
“It’s about economics.”
Fair dinkum?
“Fossil fuels are cheap, efficient, abundant, convenient and clean-burning in modern cars. What’s the problem, exactly?”
Really?
And where is your broad-based scientific data to backup that assertion?
Let’s assume you are correct, then you are wilfully ignoring one important fact, and that is, it is not renewable and it is finite.
And for the remainder of your rebuttal, you drift off into other alt-right talking points, regarding socialism, and how subsidies are considered government handouts, and it’s my taxes paying for that, and I want my free markets… yadda yadda yadda
“…to prop up the economically untenable.
Which is what EVs are.”
I have no problem with governments, making broad and sweeping changes to regulations and subsidies, to encourage people to take up vehicles that do not use finite greenhouse causing fossil fuels.
And again, where is your data to backup the your argument that it’s economically untenable?
And don’t give me no short-sighted answer, I’m referring to decades into the future, and my children’s environment that they will grow up in.
And while on the subject, I’m sure you will come back and tell me that, like our former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott… “Climate change is crap!”
And your example of the Nissan is short-sighted and simplistic.
The reason is, as technology improves in coming decades, recharging times will be shorter, and distance covered, will be greater.
The Lithium used in battery cells require a great deal of mining and processing to be useful for battery packs and it’s not available everywhere either.
How much environmental damage is being done to mine the lithium and rare earth elements used to make the magnets for the motors?
Will it mean that America will continue to wage war elsewhere on the planet to steal the wealth from other nations just so Americans can virtue signal the rest of the planet?
I have to giggle, but I find it amusing that people such as yourself, like the throw around the term virtue signalling, because when you say it so often, it shows you really have no understanding of what it means, when directed at people such as myself…
I’ve just been accused of using the term Alt-right, and the moderator of this site, thinks to question me, then allows alt-right talking points such as “virtue signalling” to go and challenged…
Which just confirms my suspicions regarding the bias of this moderator…
However, but back to the discussion, into the future, renewable fuel powered cars may not need lithium batteries, and may develop a whole new technology.
And with regards to US hegemony, I think that will continue, even when the lithium runs out, along with the fossil fuels.
I’m sure the US government, will still maintain strong political and economic control over the world, well into the decades to come, well after the fossil fuels have been depleted.
I’m sure the resource war of the second half of this century, will be around food and water security.
Decades ago the same kind of dire predictions were being made for “the year 2000.” (The book “The Limits to Growth” by the Club of Rome is a good example, and there were certainly others.) It was nonsense then and it is nonsense now.
According to those prognosticators we should have run out of oil and other important resources decades ago. It hasn’t happened. In fact reserves have increased. We will not run short of fossil fuels for centuries.
Your predictions are just as unlikely to come to fruition as those the Club of Rome made 50 years ago. (One of the few advantages to being old is having already lived through this crap and seen what a crock it is.)
There is not a reason in the world to force the use of electric vehicles. If and when their development reaches a point where they are actually superior to ICE vehicles at a comparable price the market will make a natural transition – as it did in the early 20th century when electric cars were rejected in favor of gasoline powered models.
Oh, and you can take your “alt-right” nonsense and shove it up your ass. (Eric is too much of a gentlemen to put it that way. I’m not.) It’s just a lame attempt at guilt by association.
“There is not a reason in the world to force the use of electric vehicles.”
Who said anything about forcing people?
I don’t think the US government is forcing people to do anything.
And i’m just in favour of gentle persuasion, and incentives… not outright coercion.
Even though I’m in favour of vehicles with alternative fuel sources, if the government demanded I use them, I would rebel too, just out of principle.
And as for the rest of your diatribe, well, it just goes to prove my other point, that people such as yourself view and express the world through your limbic system, rather than your prefrontal cortex.
Peter, you write:
“Who said anything about forcing people… I don’t think the US government is forcing people to do anything.”
Either you’re ignorant – or you’re being (again) disingenuous. EVs exist – as other than curiosities – only because of massive government subsidies and mandates, which are forcibly imposed.
That’s what a mandate is, you know.
The government is not “asking” car companies to manufacture EVs; it is ordering them to. The government is not “asking” us to “help” fund EVs; it is forcing us to pay taxes to subsidize them.
Nothing the government does is “gentle.”
I literally almost just threw up.
Government is force. It uses all form of coercion in the form of taxes , mandates, rules and regulations and enforces it all with armed government workers.
Wibble wobble # 3
Maybe you better check the dictionary version of forcibly… not one American is forced to buy an electric vehicle that is regulated by the government.
And your little rant about you being forced to pay taxes, in order to pay for something that you don’t agree with, is just an example of your own disingenuous claptrap.
I’m sure you have no complaints, if your taxes are forcibly used on projects and government institutions that you agree with…
In short, you are driven by simplistic ideology, and you provide no facts to backup your emotional claptrap.
Have you got it now Eric?
***”not one American is forced to buy an electric vehicle “***
No, but just as bad, if not worse: We are all forced to pay to subsidize their manufacture; to subsidize their purchase by those who choose to drive; are forced to see ICE cars so crippled by mandated ‘safety’ equipment, and a plethora of delicate electronic systems, turbo-chargers, and tiny engines in order to eek out the last .001% of an MPG and a .001% reduction in emissions that we can no longer purchase and drive what we want, because it is no longer viable or legal for the manufacturers to make such…..
And you don’t call that force???
You don’t call it force when someone MUST pay for a car equipped with airbags which may seriously injure or kill them; or high-back seats and thick pillars which obscure visibility, thus requiring even more mandates- i.e. back-up cameras and collision avoidance schemes????
Clover,
No on is forced to buy an EV – yet. But they are forced to pay for them. It is a distinction without a difference. It is like being forced to pay for someone else’s apartment. The fact that you don’t use the apartment doesn’t obviate that you’ve been forced to pay for it – indeed, it makes it even more obnoxious. As with EVs. People like me – who don’t want an EV or drive an EV – are forced to subsidize their manufacture.
In re the rest: You’ve clearly not taken taken time to read about – or are unable to grok – the Libertarian point of view, which opposes all forcible taking of other people’s property for any reason whatsoever.
Do you understand what “alt right” means? Or do you just hurl that lightning bolt at anyone who disagrees with you, hoping the imputation of fascist/Nazi will silence them?
PH …”And your little rant about you being forced to pay taxes, in order to pay for something that you don’t agree with, is just an example of your own disingenuous claptrap.
I’m sure you have no complaints, if your taxes are forcibly used on projects and government institutions that you agree with…
In short, you are driven by simplistic ideology, and you provide no facts to backup your emotional claptrap.”
LOL. Why do I see a dog barking at a mirror as I read this?
Eric, I don’t see one so I will ask, do you have a ‘Hall of Shame’ section for these types of ‘special’ clovers?
If not you should set one up. You could number them so that when the same garbage is regurgitated by a new clover, we could just send them to read previous responses to their stupidity?
Hi CF,
I like this idea of a Clover Hall of Fame! Let me see what’s doable…
That great Australian intellect shining through. Why can’t you be more like great down-under thinkers like David C. Stove ?
Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the electric vehicle in front of you.
Oh! I just found this little quip here, how droll! Funny how some children’s movies have some of the best talents and lines, eh? Inconceivable!.
” Who said anything about forcing people?
I don’t think the US government is forcing people to do anything.”
You’re absolutely correct! The government would never force anything upon us. Just like it would never force us to pay taxes; or to buy health insurance; or to let people feel up our rectum if we want to fly for “our security”; or to have airbags in our cars for “safety”; or to have car insurance if we want to drive; or to purchase E10 (gas with 10% ethanol) for “cleaner air”; or…
But yeah, you’re right. “Big Brother” is just looking out for us. Let’s all celebrate this “good deed” by sacrificing everything that we own (including our bodies) to “him”.
“However, but back to the discussion, into the future, renewable fuel powered cars may not need lithium batteries, and may develop a whole new technology.”
Lot of things MAY happen in the future. If they do, people should be (on their own) able to choose the objectively better product.
Till then, the points made about the production of Lithium ion batteries and rare earth magnets causing tremendous pollution is a valid one, and a huge demerit of this so-called “clean” technology.
Indeed, a lot of things may happen.
But I think it’s safe to say, that lithium batteries in the near future will become obsolete, and in the decades the come, there will be newer, more efficient renewable energy sources…
“Lithium-ion batteries could be obsolete if inventor has his way.”
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/batteries-john-goodenough
“…production of Lithium ion batteries and rare earth magnets causing tremendous pollution is a valid one…”
Without any broad-based data to support that statement, it will just remain your opinion.
Yep, lithium batteries almost certainly will become obsolete…..
So, since we’re dealing in speculation now anyway: What if the infrastructure of nationwide gas station/parking lot/curbside chargers which will have to be built to accommodate all of the current EVs, is not compatible with the new technology?
Current EV technology has not even stabilized, let alone matured so the idea of building an infrastructure for it is laughable- and I don’t even think politicians are crazy enough to do it.
And regardless, what is the purpose of all this anyway- to replace that which exists and works- and which is relatively cheap and efficient, and for which a universal infrastructure already exists- with something that is none of those things?
“And regardless, what is the purpose of all this anyway- to replace that which exists and works- and which is relatively cheap and efficient, and for which a universal infrastructure already exists- with something that is none of those things?”
We will all the have grandchildren one day, and they will have grandchildren, and what will they think of your statement then?
Peter,
You’ve guzzled the “climate change” Kool Aid. Rather than continue slurping it up, I urge you to take the time to read a bit more about the subject.
**”We will all the have grandchildren one day, and they will have grandchildren, and what will they think of your statement then?”***
I guess they’d think “Grandpa actually had a brain; and didn’t fall for the latest political subterfuge peddled by the media of his day”.
So please explain to me, how it is that trading energy consumption which is directly used at the point of consumption, for energy which is centrally generated and then distributed, will have any benefits to future generations- unless of course, you consider having electrical generators (or worse yet, nukular power plants) dotting the landscape is somehow a benefit.
Oh…that’s right…we’ll just trade what we now have for this bumblefuck nonsense which offers no benefits (but does offer a lot of detriments) just to keep us occupied until that mystical magical technology of the future materializes……
Sell you descendants into police state of total control and surveillance (worse than what we already have), and say that you did it for their benefit…. Yeah…makes perfect sense! Mmmmmm! That Kool-aid is good!
Hi Peter,
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design”. – F.A. Hayek
“The plans differ; the planners are all alike…” – Frederic Bastiat
Eschatological hysteria has been around as long as man has sought meaning outside of himself, but remained remained mainly religious in nature until Thomas Malthus wrapped it in a pseudo-scientific package. Since Malthus, the “scientific” doomsayers have insisted that their concerns are founded in scientific truth, not religious fanaticism, they are wrong. Paul Ehrlich, one of the worlds most prolific and highly compensated doomsayers is perhaps best understood as the Bill Kristol of the left; wrong on everything, but still influential. Ehrlich, outside of his own specific area of expertise, has a perfect track record of false prognostications. To a genuine scientist, such a record would cause at least some self reflection, to a religious fanatic, it would not.
CAGW alarmism is the latest in a long line of “end of the world” hysteria masquerading as science. Many assertions of the CAGW alarmists are profoundly anti-scientific. The term “climate change” is manipulative and dishonest. First coined by the loathsome Frank Luntz to be used by Republicans to distract from the message of the CAGW alarmists, it was quickly adopted by that same crowd to distract from the embarrassing fact that the observational record stubbornly failed to conform to the alarmist predictions. The correct term is catastrophic, anthropogenic, global warming (CAGW). After all, if it’s neither catastrophic nor anthropogenic, then the rationale for an Elite power grab is undermined. Using the term “climate change” renders the claims of the alarmists non-falsifiable. I assume you understand why that is anti-scientific.
Consensus is not science and, even if the consensus claims were true (they are not), emphasizing this, at the expense of actual debate, indicates a weakness in the scientific case. If you are interested in how profoundly wrong “consensus” science can be, research plate tectonics.
Which brings us to, “the science is settled, the time for debate is over” assertions common to the alarmists. Such claims are inherently anti-scientific and those making them should be treated with scorn by the scientific community. But, it is the skeptics, asking valid scientific questions that are dismissed and ridiculed. Again, such a basic inversion of scientific integrity can only be understood through the lens of religious fanaticism.
Finally, the use of the term “denier” is dishonest and morally reprehensible. It’s purpose is to link skeptics to holocaust deniers and, thereby, shut off any debate. No person, acting as a scientist could, in good faith, use such a term. In addition, outside of a few cranks and politicians who could be described as “deniers”, such a creature does not exist.
Do you know what the skeptics supposedly “deny”? Hint, it’s not what is claimed.
Do they “deny” the science of the “greenhouse effect”, demonstrated by John Tyndall in the latter half of the nineteenth century? – No.
Do they deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? – No.
Do they deny that CO2 concentration has increased from Tyndall’s time to now? – No.
Do they deny that this increase is likely due, in large part, to human activity? – No.
Do they deny that average global temperature has increased since Tyndall’s time? – No.
So, what exactly do they “deny”?
First, they question the likely impact of CO2 on climate sensitivity.
Second, they question the certainty of the temperature record.
In the first case, Tyndall established that, everything else equal, a doubling of CO2 would lead to about a 1 degree celsius rise in average temperature. Every credible scientist understands that, if this is all that happens, we have nothing to worry about, as every new CO2 molecule has an exponentially diminishing effect on “warming”. The catastrophic claims rest on the assertion that positive feedback mechanisms will elevate the harmless 1C per doubling to 2.5C or more. This assertion is theoretically implausible and unsupported by observational data. The skeptics are correct in questioning this assertion.
The official temperature record has been adjusted many times recently, always cooling the past and warming the present. Absent these adjustments, the hottest years on record occurred in the 1930’s, not the 2010’s. Note, I am not claiming that these adjustments are necessarily fraudulent. I am sure that there are many valid reasons to adjust the record in light of new data, analysis, etc… However, the entirely one sided nature of the adjustments indicates the strong possibility of confirmation bias; and the frequency of the adjustments necessarily renders the claims of certainty invalid. Again, the skeptics are correct to question this.
I’ll tackle policy proposals in another post.
BTW, are you related to Rolf?
Cheers,
Jeremy
Well, tie me kangaroo down, mate! Another great post by Jeremy!
Jeremy, the adjustments are fraudulent. The global warmists never did a test to see if there was any systematic error.
The temperature record is a very large data set. Error correction is usually not required with a large data set where it is used to arrive at single value, in this case the change in average temperature. Simply put the errors cancel each other out.
There are tests that can be done to see if correction is required. Tony Heller did some tests for particular corrections. In each case no correction was required. Either there isn’t the error the experts claim or it self cancels.
Now even if we grant the experts their corrections it should be one and done. But it’s not. They are always changing their adjustments. This indicates either fraud, incompetence, or a data set that is far too problematic to draw any conclusions from.
Their actions ultimately give it away. There’s no reason to take any action on their findings. If they are honest they are incompetent or the data is crap and we don’t know what error will be discovered tomorrow. If they aren’t honest it’s all a fraud.
My wording was poor. The experts apparently never did any tests to see if there was an systematic error that needed correction.
There could be systematic error on the individual station level but in the entirety of the record for that station or all the stations it may not need correction and correction could introduce a bias.
Hi Brent,
I don’t disagree with you. My point was that it does not require an allegation of fraud to show that the temperature claims, and the stated certainty about them, are illegitimate. The simple fact that the record has been adjusted so often renders the 95% confidence level claimed by the IPCC absurd. The fact that the record is always adjusted to conform to a preexisting theory indicates fraud or confirmation bias.
I have spoken to many people, with surprising success, about this issue. What I have found is that, if I begin with an allegation of fraud, I lose them immediately. If I start by showing that the claims don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny, I get many to listen and have changed minds.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hey Nunz,
Hah, I shouldn’t be surprised that you caught the reference. I wonder of Peter will.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Jeremy, Must be a good 30 years since my last encounter with that ‘un….. Ya don’t forget a name like Rolf! 😉
Peter,
Show me an EV with real ownership costs (not subsidized) comparable to a current $15,000 IC sedan, that can travel at least 400 miles (as any current $15k IC compact economy car can) and which can be fully “refueled” (i.e., recharged) in 5 minutes or less and you’ll then have an EV that is competitive with a a current $15k economy car.
For it to be superior – as a car, spare me the virtue signaling – the EV would have to cost significantly less to own (purchase price plus cost to drive over time) and still go at least as far as the IC car and be capable of being fully recharged in 5 minutes or less.
Do you know of such a car?
I await your reply.
deafening silence…
crickets…
Hmmm…. Does Dick…err…I mean Peter own an EV? If not, I wonder why not?
I don’t believe he grasps the concept that “consumerism and sustainable growth” will exhaust the natural resources he believes are “renewable”, long befor his grandchildren have the opportunity to be good little consumers themselves. If he does, then he sure doesn’t give a shit how they will have to live, or force others to live, so he and his progeny can enjoy the benefits of other people’s labor. Hi9s type will often accuse you and I of being “shortsighted” when it is his own self interests that are the core of the matter. In other words, he’s just another Pepe Bocca hypocrite.
GTC, I was thinking ‘Pepe’ too- but Pepe Le Pew…. 😀
Wibble wobble # 5.
“Do you know of such a car?
I await your reply.”
As I’ve repeatedly said, and if you have been reading, you will see that I have expressed my thoughts regarding the limitations of the technology as it stands in 2019, but if you care to read on you will see that like all technology, I believe it will vastly improve over the next several decades.
Have you got it now Eric?
***”I have expressed my thoughts regarding the limitations of the technology as it stands in 2019, but if you care to read on you will see that like all technology, I believe it will vastly improve over the next several decades.”*****
But Peter, you are defending the enforcement of that which bow is (i.e. something which is terribly flawed, being promoted and mandated to replace that which works well, and with which people are perfectly happy) on the mere hope that what you desire will come to pass at some time in the futrure?
And even if that were a realistic hope, it is still WRONG to impose it by force on others, whether that force takes the form of subsidies; or regulating ICE cars to the point where they become undesirable and or economically unviable; or by destroying the infrastructure for ICE cars, or reducing their production by covert regulation- i,e, carbon credit schemes and the like (Which may be covert to people such as yourself- but are as plain as day to those who have not consumed the Kool-aid)
On both counts, you lose.
Ignoring the immorality of force and coercion (as most authoritarians always do), just as a practical matter: What happens if this infrastructure for EVs is put in place, and all of this money is purloined for their promotion, in the hopes that the technology will improve and make them more viable in the future…and then it runs out that some other technology, such as hydrogen cells, in-fact make the breakthrough and become viable? Or some other technology is invented that has not even been considered yet? Or it is realized that EV technology has reached it’s limits, and in reality, there is nothing better with which to replace ICE cars?
I guess it really doesn’t matter anyway, since the whole point of getting rid of ICE vehicles is to restrict autonomous private travel….
And I guess there is no hope of people such as yourself ever coming to the realization of that, or caring, because you advocate and defend force(ultimately violence), so why should it matter to you then what agenda is being pushed, as long as an ostensible reason is offered for it? “Save the earth”; “Save the grandkids”; “Prevent crime/terrorism”; “Reduce car accidents”…take your pick.
Clover,
You tout assertions about hypotheticals and projections as though these were facts – while ignoring the actual facts.
The facts are that EVs are far too expensive to be economically competitive with IC cars, they take at least 5-6 times as long to recover a partial charge than it takes to fully fuel an IC car, are range gimped and that range is markedly affected by heat/cold and use of accessories… all facts, indisputable.
Your hypothetical cost-competitive/recharges as quickly as an IC car is purely speculative. It may happen – but it has not actually happened. And there is no direct/indisputable evidence that it will happen.
Cost going down is not enough; the cost must be less – else it does not make any sense.
The range must be comparable to an equivalent IC car, regardless of heat/cold and use of accessories – else it is diminishment of mobility and so undesirable.
The time to recover a charge must be about the same as the time it takes to refuel an IC car – else it is a time-waster and a tremendous inconvenience.
The Great Green Arkleseizure is the creator of the universe, as claimed by adherents of the faith on planet Viltvodle VI. The Jatravartids of this faith believe that the Universe was sneezed out of the Great Green Arkleseizure’s nose. I, myself, am waiting for the return of Zarquon, which will happen at the end of the universe, so, I might have a bit of a wait. Perhaps, in the meantime, we should spend our time squeezing wine from granite, and defying other laws of nature as well. If all of this inane activity is to no avail, it does not matter, as long as I get my Bordeaux, yes?
…such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess’s undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy. Many respectable physicists said that they weren’t going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn’t get invited to those sorts of parties.
Peter,
“Virtue signaling” is used to describe people – invariably affluent – who signal their (supposed) virtue (in this case, belief in the “climate change” religion) by driving around in EVs subsidized by other people’s money.
It has nothing to do with “alt right” – a term invented by the political left to disparage anyone who disagrees with leftist shibboleths as a kind of crypto fascist, if not Nazi.
Which is despicable nonsense.
I challenge you to find any statement of mine that even inclines toward the support of any form of coercive collectivism, which is the core philosophical premise of the political left and the political right.
If you’re honest with yourself (and to be fair, you may not have realized it) you are in principle closer to “alt right” than I … because it is you who advocate for coercive collectivist “solutions” to problems you believe exist – and which you insist on forcing others to accept exist.
There is little meaningful difference between the left and the right; they both agree on coercive collectivism and merely bicker over what shall be done to whom by who.
Per Lenin – the godfather of the “alt left.”
Libertarians repudiate the use of coercion – for any reason except in response to coercion (i.e., in self defense),
As soon as I read “Alt Right” in Peter’s first post on here, I didn’t take him seriously- as he clearly had never read any other articles or comments here, if he thinks that we are in favor of any political ideology other than that of individual liberty/self-ownership/being left alone; and his pigeon-holing any of us into any brand of authoritarian-collectivism, be it right or left, leads me to believe that he just associates any given position on a given topic with any particular group which may advocate that position- rather than seeing that our positions are based on reality and personal understanding; and the only ‘right’ or ‘left’ here is that we all believe in the RIGHT to be LEFT alone!
Since I am opposed to:
Wars
Nukular power
Welfare
Socialized medicine
Police
Democracy
Socialism
Communism
Taxes
Licenses
State involvement in marriage/family
Anti-discrimination laws
I wonder where Peter would place me on his political scale? [Uh-oh! I think smoke is coming out of his head!)
Ooo! Oooo! Or better yet, imagine the meltdown Peter would have if he encountered a black person- such as Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams, who shares our beliefs?!
ROTFLMAO picturing it!
Peter: “This can not be!!!!!!”
Indeed! These guys would probably make his head explode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8UqbASjQCo
That and the, wait for it… “Think of the (grand)children!” that the control freaks always tearfully trot out if nothing else works.
They pulled that crap 40-50 years ago too, and the children and grandchildren are doing just fine. The only real problem with them is that so many have been immersed in this nonsense for so long that their brains have been washed into unthinking acceptance and compliance.
Wibble wobble # 6.
Really, that requires no reply, because it’s just an incoherent rant, using all the typical alt-right talking points.
In short, limbic system driven emotion, and no facts
Tried to insert image…
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/7d/d6/b4/7dd6b4ccfb8ed04bff5e8efe1605f544–kettle-pots.jpg
Clover,
You continue to characterize me as a fascist/Nazi – without an iota of evidence to support the claim, which would include arguing in favor of coercive authoritarian government, racialism and so on.
I’m on the verge of banning you because I tire of responding to non sequiturs and ad hominem attacks unsupported by facts.
“I have no problem with governments, making broad and sweeping changes to regulations and subsidies, to encourage people to take up vehicles that do not use finite greenhouse causing fossil fuels.”
In plain English, you want to use government guns in order to force your will onto everyone who does not share your views. In other words, you are a violent predator who is in need of treatment and education. By the way, EV’s will always be much more expensive than an ICE because it costs a lot more to store electricity than it does to generate it. It’s basic physics that most people, such as yourself, do not understand. Comparing i-phones or computer technology to battery technology is absurd because chip technology is 99% intellectual and one percent material while battery technology is 99% raw materials. I support the right of self-defense so that people can defend themselves from violent predators. My guess is that you support gun control because the main purpose of gun control is to protect the most violent predators, the law makers and their enforcement goons.
Well-said, Rick!
And don’t ya just love it? What Peter is essentially saying, is that he supports government’s ability to decide what is best for all, and then enforce impose those decisions on all, by any means necessary.
Funny, he doesn’t seem to notice how throughout history, such scenarios have only resulted in genocide and decline- and have NEVER accomplished anything good (even if one were to be so evil so as to believe that if such did somehow result in positive effects that those means could be justified0- which of course, they could not be.)
Any time a power structure is erected to control the masses- ostensibly always for “their own good”, no good comes of it- and you would think by now, having seen all the modern examples, that no one would fall for such idiocy- but yet they persist, and rush head-long into the abyss, gleefully trading their most valuable resource- personal liberty- for some promised utopia which never materializes…but which instead results in the very opposite of what was hoped for.
The fact that they would do so in regard to EVs is even more disturbing, as it clearly illustrates their cluelessness. What they are essentially proposing, is a forced solution to a problem which doesn’t even exist; and if it did exist, their solution would be no solution, because all it is doing is relocating the generation of power from that of the end user to a centralized location- which not only fails to accomplish the stated goal of “reducing emissions and reducing dependency on fossil fuels”, but would, when accomplished on a mass scale, most likely exacerbate those conditions.
But they clearly haven’t given this an inkling of thought. They just parrot what they hear; what they’ve been told. They haven’t even heard both sides of the argument; much less assessed the situation on their own. If they’ve done any “research”, it is likely only the reading of studies and prophecies of government-funded prophets in white coats, who are all paid to be on the same page (Just like the nutrition studies of the past 40 years- which are now just finally being outed for the junk science they were).
Funny- these types always care so much about “the people” and “the planet” that they are willing to destroy both by aiding the causes of the worst monsters and tyrants, who don’t give a damn about either.
Peter,
Were you aware that the U.S. is on the verge of becoming the world’s greatest producer of oil and a net exporter? The whole “peak oil” con has fallen asunder.
Yet for decades, the same people who are now pushing the “climate change” shibboleth ululated about the imminent scarcity of oil. Turns out they were very badly mistaken. And the abundance of oil obviates any need for “alternatives” – especially those which are much more costly and far less convenient.
I understand you believe in “climate change” – the hysteria, that is. Over a measured 1 percent increase in average temperatures that may or may not be the result of man’s activities – and in apocalyptic worst-case scenarios confected by cynical, power-hungry politicians who (mark this) do not impose energy austerity on themselves.
The argument that “…as technology improves in coming decades, recharging times will be shorter, and distance covered, will be greater” has been rattling around for decades.
I might walk on the surface of the sun one day, too.
But how about today?
Eric, what you find when closely examining the “climate change/global warming” movement is a tissue of lies. Of course environmentalists have been some of the worst liars to come down the pike in the last 50 years, purveying hysterical tales of impending doom which of course never materialize – so they keep moving the goalposts. Instead of “by the 1980s… by the 1990s… by the year 2000” the latest mantra is “we only have 12 years.” To quote the phrase used by scientist Reid Bryson (father of modern climate science) in describing man-made global warming, “It’s a bunch of hooey.”
What you find on close examination of the climate change religion is that it is primarily based on cherry-picked and falsified data fed into faulty computer simulations. In a manner like corrupt prosecutors burying exculpatory evidence, original data is conveniently “lost”, contrary data is discarded. Studies are commissioned that are designed and funded specifically with the goal of “proving” man-made climate change. Make no mistake about it, this is a religion, one that demands its followers make whatever sacrifices the priesthood requires in order to appease their angry god – and also demands that “unbelievers” (or “deniers” as the True Believers like to call them) must be brought to heel.
An example of this: The “climategate” emails from about 10 years ago revealed how a group of “scientists” (more like political hacks) cooked the books to make it appear as though the last century was warming at a dangerous rate. They further plotted to retcon history, looking to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period from the history books, and utilized Wikipedia to attempt a wholesale rewriting of history. They even wanted to have printed history books changed. This is the kind of mindset we are dealing with.
Additionally, when examined closely we find there is no “scientific consensus.” The so-called consensus is fabricated, and scientific dissent is ruthlessly suppressed.
Then we have the climate hucksters themselves making the most damning statements imaginable about their true agenda, such as:
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” – Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
“Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection… The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.” Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair IPCC Working Group III
There’s plenty more, but you get the idea. The bottom line is that the fraud is being purveyed by people who want to use “saving the planet” as an excuse to expedite the wholesale theft of individual liberty and property. Governments salivate at the prospect while useful idiots in the peanut gallery actually believe they are going to take control of the earth’s climate by driving electric cars.
One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes is applicable to the endless predictions of doom trotted out by the True Believers:
“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore … in the
Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million
three hundred thousand miles long … seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. … There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of
fact.”
Awesome post, Jason! I really enjoyed reading that.
Yeah, I remember back in the late 80’s, reading books on sundry and various subjects, and somehow, they’d always get around to quoting some prediction of immanent environmental catastrophe- and that unless such and such was done by the year 2000 (like eliminating private cars) we’d all be freezing to death/sweltering to death/living in a toxic wasteland/starving, by the year 2020.
So, next year, it looks like life as we know it will be radically different! I can just see it- all of those greenies saying “See? Told ya!!”.
And I still remember all of the “We must conserve electricity at all costs” BS from as far back as the late 70’s. See? Now I know why they wanted to conserve it: So they could use it for all of these electric cars!!! (Now things have changed, somehow; Now EVERYTHING must be electric! If you’re not using electricity every minute of every day, something must be wrong with you! 😉 )
Wibble wobble # 7.
“Were you aware that the U.S. is on the verge of becoming the world’s greatest producer of oil and a net exporter?”
On the “verge?”
Not even close, from what I read on ZeroHedge, all those Shale oil companies are up to their eyeballs in debt, and will collapse before you become oil independent.
Most of those Shale oil companies, if not all, only make profit when WTI is above 75 / $80 a barrel.
And with the impending crash of the global economy, the price of oil will go down even further from it’s current low price.
“The argument that “…as technology improves in coming decades, recharging times will be shorter, and distance covered, will be greater” has been rattling around for decades.”
Yes, I remember my grandfather telling me when he bought his first electric current in the 1960’s, and he was complaining that the battery took up most of the room in the boot, and it took all night to charge, and he only drove for 30 minutes…
????????
*Car… oops, autocorrect, I meant to say car of the nineteen sixties.
Clover (I use the honorific because you’ve earned it) –
Debt is an entirely separate matter – irrelevant to the fact that, indeed, the U.S. is on the verge of being the world’s largest producer of oil and a net exporter. Oil supplies are vastly more than touted – and we are in now way “running out.” It’s a fatuous argument because the facts make it obviously fatuous.
And if oil prices go down even more, then gas becomes even cheaper – and EVs even less appealing.
Eric, The Dipshit (I use the honorific because it’s earned it) – when squittering about oil supply is obviously unaware that
”
There’s no shortage of oil in the world right now, with global supplies hitting a record last summer. ”
From
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-explains-venezuelan-oil-embargo-could-mean-us-225134103.html
And is ignorant about what the Global Warming scam is about: here are the real goals in the criminals own words
http://www.investors.com/po…
“At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
and
http://www.cfact.org/2017/0…
“Ottmar Edenhofer, lead author of the IPCC’s fourth summary report released in 2007 candidly expressed the priority. Speaking in 2010, he advised, “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.””
Hey Cadillac: Have you ever heard of Sears?
Next up: Cadillacs sold at your nearest Ace Hardware.
Actually that’s not a bad idea.
Computers took off when they stopped being sold at specialty computer stores
and started being sold at department stores.
An EV cadillac may not need a dealer but rather would sell well
without dealer prep and overhead.
Hi Pat,
Cadillac EVs – like all EVs – will only “sell” so long as others are forced to “help” finance their manufacture and purchase.
Heh, your user name (Alger Hiss).
There will be a real slew of Ch. 11 filings in the next two years. GM, GE, Sears, JCP, Macy’s and all the rest of the crap brands. Popcorn and marshmallows ready!
Dealerships utterly detest the BEVs. They only have tires and brakes to really service. I bought a used offlease 2015 Spark EV with ccs charging. It can charge 0-100% soc in about 20-25 minutes, 10-80 is more like 10 minutes. It has a 19kwh battery, not much larger than a current Zero motorcycle. It’s range is about 70 miles mixed in summer, less due to defroster use in winter. BEVs can’t work in their ideal environment for efficiency, which is urban, unless government helps. They are presently a toy of affluent suburbanites that wish to virtue signal. They can be very low cost to operate in some usage patterns, but require a lost art here of being able to accept LESS. Those who do are likely masochists at heart. I like to experiment with edgy things, and BEVs seem to be accessible right now due to low resale value, reusability of parts such as batteries. Also, they are truly international cars, the onboard chargers are all the same, the only difference is the connector is either J1772 or mennekes, for either, purely electrical mapping adapters are available, no transforms needed.
And more from that amazing innovating genius Elon Musk….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ezF7NmwQZs
Musk and alexandria ocasio-cortez are proof that Americans are mentally retarded parasitic children.
Musk is from South Africa.
Africa. That would explain the ‘African engineering’ and the constant lying…..
Here is a good explanation of battery tech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RbwOhM6PUk
The guy is a tax-taker goof, but knows science.
I see 2 year old off-lease Smart EVs for sale for $8000.
Now THAT would be a viable toy since you can’t even get a new golf cart for that amount.
$20,000 for used Cadillac ELRs…pffffft.
While painting a bigger picture in this article, it looks like Mr. Armstrong is with you on the imminent demise of the internal combustion engine:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/civil-unrest/the-clash-between-normal-people-the-global-warming-crowd-green-extremist-overlords/
GM has long proved that “management by consensus” is a sure formula for disaster, though to he fair to GM the other domestic automakers have all had their grim and often bizarre failures. The weird Edsel of the Fifties was perhaps Ford’s most notable example, perhaps followed by AMC with the Pacer (Half a car for price of one!), and more recently the DeLorean and the Bricklin, both of which utterly disappeared altogether a few months after introduction.
I am salivating at the mouth to see Jan 19/Q1 sales reports for the big 3 on trucks. The 2019 Silverado is an abomination and I have only seen 5 (3 Chevy/2 GMC) here in metro Houston since September 2018. I saw 3 new 19 Rams with paper tags on my commute this morning and lost track of the total 2019 Rams I’ve seen in Houston since then. Tick tock Marry
In my area, ya look for used trucks on Craigslist…..all ya see are late-model Chevy’s for sale.
Unfortunately Mr Peters is wrong about so many details in this article that it definitely in the fake news category. First of all, it was well documented that after former Cadillac head Johan de Nysschen was fired in April 2018, they moved back to Detroit in September of 2018. Second, if he would have done the most amateur search of Google, he would have seen that Porsche, Audi, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Bentley and even Ferrari all have future electronic vehicles coming. Not to mention the fact that Tesla has sold over 200,000 cars itself. It’s called keeping up with the Joneses. If anything, they are late to the party as always.
This isn’t the first time I, being a novice, have been able to call out the lack of journalistic integrity Mr Peters has.
Patrick,
Yes, the other companies you mention are also building EVs – but not because of market demand. Because of mandates. They, too, are rushing over the cliff. You seem to have missed the point.
On the NY thing: I merely pointed out that Cadillac moved its HQ to NYC. Which is perfectly true. That the decision was questioned and changed a few months ago doesn’t alter the point – which you missed, again – that Cadillac moved to perhaps the most car-irrelevant place in America.
On Tesla: They have given away those cars, each at a net loss (or would-be loss, absent the subsidies) which is another point you missed.
Eric,
Toyota says the new solid state lithium batteries will be in their cars by 2025. This is an effective new technology with much faster charge times and 500 miles on a charge. it’s a huge advance over the current lithium batteries. Will GM get it right? I doubt it but they won’t fail because of the batteries.
Hi Bernie,
Yeah – but how fast, exactly? And how much? If it’s not as fast as refueling – five minutes or less, to “full” – and costs more than fuel… why bother with it?
This is the question – which no one seems to want to discuss, let alone answer. Are EVs functionally or economically superior to IC cars? If they are not, why would anyone want one – other than for the novelty factor?
Meanwhile….we’re all still waiting for all of those $35K model 3’s that were promised 4 years ago. Oh, what’s that? No one’s gonna get ’em now? [Well, I wasn’t waiting…I wouldn’t have one!]
It’s always some glorious future made possible by a new technology that’s just around the corner…..
Just like we were going to be living in colonies on the Moon by the year 2000 and flying around in hover cars…. How’s that working out?
I love how people keep falling for the same crap, over and over again. Until reality hits….the promised technology either quietly disappears or is greatly delayed; or if brought to fruition, is wracked with impracticalities and problems……
Pie-in-the-sky- to make ya trade what works well and efficiently….for some promised utopia which doesn’t work at all…much lkess, efficiently.
Elon Musk is a genius of a con-man…Or are people just really stupid? How do people so stupid get money for an imaginary $35K model 3 electric toy? Only in America!
Hi Cambo,
People have been lied to. The MSM has presented a fantasy – not reality – while at the same time, tub-thumping that EVs are “inevitable” and The Future…
People are so obsessed with high technology; state-of-the-art this & that; anything with a computer/electronic interface/blinking lights, that it no longer matters if that technology actually works or not; or if it actually offers a benefit or efficiency over an older, simpler way.
100 years ago, the NYC subway was unstoppable and reliable- regardless of the weather or anything else; as was the LIRR (commuter railroad) with manual signals and steam engines…..
Subway cars from 55 years ago are still in service, while much newer ones have been retired…because the old ones still work and are economically viable to maintain and reprair.
Today? (and for a couple of decades now) that system is a mess- The have updated everything over these last few decades, to be computerized; state-of-the-art trains; computerized signals; even the promise of one line that can be operated without a motorman or conductor (Put hundreds of millions of dollars into retrofitting the old line- but it never seems to materialize- and if it ever becomes functional, it’ll take 100 years before the cost is amortized!)
You get on a NYC train today, and it’s absolute chaos- constant detours and reroutes and breakdowns. On the LIRR, where steam trains used to get through blizzards with no problem- the service comes to a halt if leaves fall on the tracks, or it rains moderately (seriously!)….
And YET, you mention to the average NYer that we’d be better off with the technology of 75 years ago…and they stare blankly and then say “Yeah, but we should have modern equipment so that it doesn’t seem like we’re in the Dark Ages”….
Yeah…it doesn’t matter that despite a massive amount of taxpayer wealth pays for all of this crap, and that it takes longer to get where you’re going today (if you get there at all) than it did 75 years ago….and that it’s giotten to the point where half of NYers don’t bother going anywhere on the weekend that requires a trip on the subway, because it’s become so arduous….all that matters is that “we” have nice shiny trains with blinking lights and computers….
Ditto with cars and everything else. Function no longer matters…..
In my basement is a Sear stand up freezer from 1968 (its older then me actually, I’m a 1973 model). My mom bought it used in the early 1980’s from some friend who was moving from a house into a condo and didn’t have room for it. It still looked brand new even though it was already 15 years old. I became it’s third owner sometime in the late 1990’s and it’s still going strong (it doesn’t look new anymore though). It’s never leaked freon, and has never been recharged. (if it does start to leak, its toast because that freon is no longer available).
I doubt that I would have saved money over the years by having a more energy efficient model because I would have had to replace the whole thing twice by now since they don’t last long anymore. It’s more green by lasting a half century instead of being replaced every decade by an machine that may only be 3% more “efficient” than the last. (an existing working item is always more green than any new item). It’s outlasted a washing machine from 2001 and dishwasher from 2004 (both pieces of garbage that never were right even when new).
You got that right, Rich!
My neighbor had a 1968 freezer also (She moved, but I believe that the people now in the house still have it)- Big ol’ chest freezer- I don’t know what brand- but it’s never given them a day’s trouble.
Contrast that with a new one I bought in ’03 when I butchered a steer….. Crapped out in 6 years- and I’m talking the compressor- not a capacitor or something small. Woulda cost almost as much to buy a new compressor as I paid for the freezer!
Yeah…so it used $2 a month in electricity vs. the ’68s $4 or $5 (and mione was a lot smaller than the 68!)…big whoop. Now I guess it’s really “saving me money”, ’cause it ain’t costing me anything to run…since it doesn’t anymore.
Musk has just announced a layoff of 3000 employees/ 7% of workforce due to financial difficulties.
Looks like Uncle better step up to the plate and mandate EVs for everyone.
Did you see his 1950s sci-fi rocket?
It fell over BTW.
If it’s not a con he’s not a genius.
He should become a televangelist.
https://stories.avvo.com/nakedlaw/bizarre/6-outrageously-wealthy-preachers-under-federal-investigation.html
I wish people could understand physical matters like Specific Energy and how dangerous it is to have a 100kw bomb underneath you.
Batteries really don’t blow up. Lithium cells when either shorted or over charged/ discharged will first expand/Puff up and then flame.
I’ve seen this happen numerous times with people flying electric R/C planes.
Done it myself.
In the case of EVs it creates a cascade effect. No stopping it.
I don’t think Patrick was missing these points, I think Patrick is just steeped in conformation bias.
“Yes, the other companies you mention are also building EVs – but not because of market demand. Because of mandates. ”
A mandate is a market… You may not like it, but when the “Gubmint” makes every house get an indoor toilet, that’s a market… When the ‘Damn Gubmint” makes houses
get Smoke Detectors it’s a market. A lot of money has been made on GFI outlets, and
fire extinguishers and seatbelts….
Pat,
A mandate creates an artificial market – and that is a perversion of the concept of a market. Such perversions existed in the Soviet Union. Do you advocate such here?
A market – properly speaking – involves the free exchange of goods and services; each party obtains a net value, that defined by their willingness to participate in the exchange. If they are not willing – and the exchange is force – the idea of “value” becomes as risible as being a “customer” of the IRS.
The “market” you describe” is merely wealth transfer – based on coercion. There is no value in forcing the manufacture of things which cannot be sold absent a requirement they be bought. What you defend is fundamentally akin to rolling the printing presses to manufacturer more money (paper currency)… something is created, but value is lost.
China is a mandate, it’s a car market with 20 Million unit sales/year and
the Chinese have mandated 100% EV Sales in 5 years.
So, GM is chasing that.
Hi Pat,
Yes, it’s a mandate – but it is not a “market” anymore than I “contribute” to Social Security. Words (definitions) matter – because they are the articulation of concepts. And forcing people to build – and buy – something is the antithesis of a market. To speak of what goes on in China as a “market” is to endow it with a legitimacy it does not possess.
Exactly, Eric. It’s like Obamacare: Government forcing people to buy something they don’t want/need/would be cheaper on the free market….while dictating to the providers of said product the specifications of their product- as opposed to letting a free market determine what may be offered and at what price.
EVs and their promotion/subsidization are the transportation version of Obamacare!
While you bask in the full fury of Ayn Rand, GM is looking at
selling 20 Million units of EVs a year in China, or more importantly
not getting locked out of the China market.
You are welcome to rant all you want. Please, type away in righteous fury. Meanwhile real adults working in business are trying to move product.
By the way… Mr “Purity of Market”. I hope you walk everywhere,
requesting permission from private landowners to pass and avoiding public roads and sidewalks… Oh what? You like publically funded roads? What about the market for roads? Why aren’t you driving only
on privately owned roads? After all, that is supporting private enterprise
and ending your addiction to socialism
Pat,
Rand has nothing to do with this.
You keep missing the point. GM is exploiting mandated demand in an authoritarian country – and using American taxpayer dollars to finance it. Why should Americans be forced to finance GM’s “growth” in China?
Is this laudable?
Characterizing yourself as a “real adult” for not objecting to this – and by implication, those who do object as infantile – is typical of people who don’t mind (as the saying goes) breaking eggs to make omelettes. The eggs being other people’s resources and even lives.
Do you remember 2008, Pat? When GM went belly up – and begged the government to steal money from the American people to prop it up – in order to save American jobs? What happened to that, Pat? You will say that GM repaid the loan, which is true. But beside the point. And then there is the fundamental point about EVs being fundamentally not viable – unless they are heavily subsidized and their manufacturer mandated and alternatives effectively outlawed via regulatory fiat. You seem to believe – as many EV touters do – that everyone (including the Chinese) can somehow afford to buy $30,000-plus electric cars, which is risible. You are talking about a near-doubling of the cost of the current typical IC economy car (tripling it in China, where you can buy a new economy car for about $9,000 U.S).
How do “real adults” square this math? Or do you – like so many EV people – simply assume everyone’s a six-figure tech worker and so ought to have no trouble absorbing a 50 percent (or more) increase in the cost of a car?
I once admired GM. It used to make cars for the market – in response to buyer demand. It owned – legitimately, because without coercion – 50 percent of the North American market. Today, the entire enterprise has less market share than Chevrolet division had in 1970. Interesting, isn’t it?
GM came to love Big Brother – and Big Sister, too. It stopped focusing on its customers and began to hump the leg of the government. Today, it is an adjunct of the government, or might as well be. It cares more about mulcting people via mandates – and genuflecting before politically correct shibboleths such as “diversity” – than it does about designing and building cars for the market. Which explains its diminishing market share – and its increasing reliance on mandates and subsidies, to force people to buy its products, whether directly or indirectly.
As far as your comments in re the roads: See my article on the subject. Roads are actually very Libertarian – in principle at least. They can be (and have been) built without coercion and funded via non-coercive user fees, paid as you go.
You’ll notice – perhaps – I have not called you names, but rather presented facts and made arguments based on them.
It is what “real adults” ought to do.
“GM is exploiting mandated demand in an authoritarian country – and using American taxpayer dollars to finance it. ”
Yes and American-Standard is exploiting mandated demand in every County in the US by selling toilets.
Modern US Building code since the 50’s has mandated an indoor operable flush toilet in every dwelling unit in the US.
Are you going to go on a rant about American-Standard humping the leg of Government?
” You seem to believe – as many EV touters do – that everyone (including the Chinese) can somehow afford to buy $30,000-plus electric cars, which is risible. You are talking about a near-doubling of the cost of the current typical IC economy car (tripling it in China, where you can buy a new economy car for about $9,000 U.S).”
http://www.impactlab.net/2019/01/20/chinese-company-unveils-worlds-cheapest-electric-car-for-under-9000/
and GWM is rolling out a $9K EV for the China Market. I would suggest you spend more time
on Planet Reality and less time in some fabian debating society where every EV costs $140K and goes 20 miles and takes three days to charge.
It’s rather amusing watching people like you ranting about reality…
Long diatribes about China and Mandates. Get a clue. China is a communist country. It’s a great big communist country. You know that dreaded socialism? Oh and China is now the second largest
global economy. Bigger then Japan… Oh? Right. Bigger then Germany..
While you are ranting about Mandates, China is building the worlds largest electric bus fleets, High speed rail and EV Car charging networks. But you ranting about Mandates, and oh that awful GM loan in 2008. That’s so 2008… Meanwhile GM has been dealing with 10 years of reality.
Yes GM lost market share. GM has lost market share to companies like VW and BMW. Oh BMW is doing a full electric strategy? You are whining about the Horse and Buggy and while the players are changing technology.
What makes a better business case? Being the best Gas car manufacturer in China in 5 years or being the 2nd best electric car manufacturer in China in 5 years?
make your argument. You are so smart… I want to hear that.
Clover,
The point is that mandating (forcing) people to buy or subsidize anything is morally wrong on the face of it.
Unless you take the position that you have the right to threaten to harm other people in order to provide you a material benefit, or to benefit something you consider “good.” In which case, you’re a thug. One without the courage to do the stealing and coercing on your own, of course. Rather, a poltroon who hides behind the ballot box and hugs the pants leg of proxies (politicians and bureaucrats) who do the wet work you’re afraid to do yourself.
There is demand for toilets, Clover. Real, authentic demand. Thus, a market. A Toilet Mandate is not necessary nor ever has been.
There is almost no real demand for EVs; just forced production and subsidization. That GM is exploiting this does not detract from the vileness of it. GM has become a make-work operation and shakedown racket, all at the same time.
The $9k EV you linked to? One, it is a concept car – not an actual – car. One that can be bought, I mean. Two, if it ever turns out to be actual and delivers on its promises, then it would be superior to current IC econo-compacts and not require subsidies or mandates. How about we eliminate them, in that case?
Your entire argument is premised on an obvious absurdity: If EVs are so very good (let alone superior) mandates and subsidies would not be necessary. And yet, they are vital – without them, the “market” for EVs would all but disappear. You know it as well as I know it.
EVs are not new; they have been around for more than 100 years. They remain inferior to IC cars, if the measures are cost/convenience/practicality. Which is why they cannot compete on the merits.
That is the bottom line reality, Clover.
China is building infrastructure, yes. Absolutely – on the backs of people who exist to serve the state and its new crony capitalist adjunct.
You desire the same here. I do not. I prefer free exchange and non-coercion.
“There is demand for toilets, Clover. Real, authentic demand. ”
No there isn’t. For most of the history of this country, we didn’t have indoor flush toilets, sewer systems or water treatment plants.
For most of the world there aren’t indoor flush toilets. (Africa, South America, Mexico, Indonesia, India,) Billions of people live without flush toilets.
You also betray that you have never worked outdoors in any hard job. Construction sites, mining, Agriculture, road construction these are all work sites without flush toilets. If there was a real natural organic demand, mines would have flush toilets…
They don’t have them because the workers can’t demand them and the employers don’t want to pay for them.
You would know this but, i guess you have never done any hardcore physical activity in your life.
“The $9k EV you linked to? One, it is a concept car – not an actual – car. One that can be bought, I mean. ”
You also betray you know nothing about car manufacturing. All cars start as concept cars. They show them off, if the press and customers like them, well, then they try and sell them.
Oh, and if in 5 years Electric cars are at 100% of the chinese market and GM is selling in that market and decides to start exporting from China EVs to the US, what are you going to say? Are you going to say “Eric Peters screwed the pooch here?”
Are you going to say “Wow, um, I guess I missed this technology evolution?”
“I prefer free exchange and non-coercion.” Okay. Stop taking my tax money to build roads in your hick county. Refund 100% of the federal gas tax and let your chunk of hickville pay for it’s own roads
and it’s own bridges….
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746
“”When [counties] had lots of money, they paved a lot of the roads and tried to make life easier for the people who lived out here,” said Stutsman County Highway Superintendant Mike Zimmerman, sifting the dusty black rubble through his fingers. “Now, it’s catching up to them.”
There you go.. Move to Stutsman ND. You can freely associate on wether you want a paved road..
although you really do belong in Yemen. No Government there.
Clover,
The fact that flush toilets aren’t everywhere (as at constructions sites and mines) doesn’t mean there’s no market demand for them. They may not make sense at a temporary work site. Hence portable toilets. But it’s neither here nor there.
As others have already pointed out, toilets were invented – and offered for sale on the market successfully – long before any building codes mandating their installation in new home construction. No mandate is necessary for toilets to be a successful (not subsidized) product on the free market.
Facts.
EVs exist as other than high-dollar curiosities only because of mandates and subsidies.
Fact.
Whether I have or have not done “hard core physical work” bears on exactly nothing, Clover – at least as regards the topic under discussion.
But for the record, I’ve been a roofer and unloaded UPS trucks, both plenty active.
And if you want to compare dick length or bench press max, I’m down for that, too.
On concept cars: They are for show, Clover – and may or may not be built and what ends up actually being offered for sale is often very different from what is shown at a car show.
If you knew anything about the car business. You’d know this. So either you know little about the car business, or you posted that example – the “$9k EV” – for deliberately misleading reasons.
Finally: You write that I live in “hickville.”
Note that it’s you – not I – hurling racial/ethnic slurs.
Here you go, Clover… just for you!
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019/01/26/what-cadillac-should-have-done-and-still-could/
I’m so sick of this virulent scum [exemplified by Patb] whose lack of intelligence and morality makes them worse than the plantation slave-owners (whom they would no doubt feign disgust for), because they unabashedly advocate and foster slavery for all of humanity (At least the plantation slavers only enslaved a few people).
First off Pat, building codes (such as mandate terlits) which dictate how others choose to live, or how they order what is supposed to be their property, only exist because authoritarian scum such as yourself have erected a humongous infrastructure of organized crime which we call ‘government’ to so force people to comply with your will; or what YOU feel ‘is best’.
Having grown up in a place where one has to pay $750 (!!!!) to the local elected cartel just for permission to have a waterheater installed in their own home [That is how the cartel works- They make mandates which not only require you to buy products and services, and live in a certain manner- but then they charge you for permission to even do what they mandate; while taxing you to live in your own home, so you can pay their salary…) I moved, as soon as I was able, to a place where there are no building codes, so I can do what I want on my own property, and not have to ask anyone for permission to do as I please with what is mine (and such places are becoming very rare- almost non-existent here in the US).
And guess what? I CHOOSE to have a terlit. In fact, I have 2 of them. No one has to force me to buy those terlits; no one has to force others to partially pay for them; no one is forced to subsidize their manufacture.
This country was full of terlits long before any places other than Boston and NY had building codes. Now, unfortunately, all this country is full of -much like yourself- is SHIT!
Hey, but if it makes you feel any better, this state did persecute some Amish a few counties over, for not having indoor plumbing in their private, non-tax-funded school! (You would have loved it! You could have brought a lawn chair and a pennant, and rooted for the state!).
There’s literally no difference between you and a Mafia hit-man, except that you justify the crimes of which you approve because you think that iof they are committed by certain men who somehow have the moral right to do something to others which you do not have the right to do, that it makes it legit.
Thanks for the back-up, Nunz!
Hiya Nunz!
The key difference between people like us (Libertarians, anarchysts) and people like Pat (socialists, corporatists) is not that we have wildly differing ideas as regards what’s desirable, how people ought to interact but that people like Pat insist on forcing their views on others while we are content to leave people like Pat free to practice socialism… among themselves (like-minded people) provided they leave us out of their schemes.
Exactly, Eric. That is the simple truth of the matter.
Regardless of what we may prefer, or think to be right or correct or judicious, we want nothing other than the most basic right that all humans should have -both for ourselves and all others- and that is simply the right to be left alone to order our lives as we see fit; and to allow all others- whether we agree with their decisions and actions or not, to be free to do the same.
*They* on the other hand, advocate the use of violence, murder, coercion and theft to force others to do what *they* see as being ‘the proper thing’- or to force them to do what some consensus thinks is right and proper; or to manipulate certain groups to force them to provide some benefit to another group (who *they* also control)- thus *they* are inherently violent, larcenous manipulators.
It may not occur to some slower types that that is what it boils down to, at first (Although it is pretty obvious- I mean, most of us figure it out when we’re kids: Don’t pay your taxes, and what happens? Some men with guns come and take you away, and take your stuff) – but at least by the time they’re in their teens, they should see this, unless they’re mentally retarded or something.
I mean, it was easy enough to see when I was a kid in the 70’s- when the tyranny was much lighter and gentler than today; back then, the adults would tell you “Be thankfull you don’t live in the USSR where the police can break down your door in the middle of the night for virtually any little thing”.
Well, today, that tyranny is much more in their face. Little children being handcuffed, tazed and tackled for minor school misbehaviors; SWAT teams destroying people’s lives and houses- not of violent hostage-taking criminals- but just the average person; Parents getting arrested for merely letting their kids play outside; “safety” roadblocks and ‘checkpoints’- East German style; Every aspect of our lives controlled and surveilled and taxed; with a swift boot to the ass for the least little transgression. Zealots of particular political ideologies openly advocating genocide, violence and death for those on the other side (Whole they claim to be ‘tolerant’ )…..
All that, and yet they get huffy and defensive when we point out that they are the purveyors and enablers and slavery, tyranny, violence and death- all the while decrying (and rightfully so) the slave-owner of 200 years ago for doing no more to a few niggers….
Yet they want to do the same to everyone, on a worldwide basis- and think that that is no crime.
They’ll decry Hitler (But rarely Stalin, for some reason… :o), and yet advocate for the erection of the very same power structure that enabled such men- because “their brand of tyranny is better or more humane” or something, than Hitler’s or Stalin’s…
Damn fools!
This most basic of issues separates the innocent from the evil. Once one sees that the political system in which they participate, and which they uphold and advocate, is nothing more than a way of ‘legally’ manipulating sentient human beings via the use of threats, coercion, violence, murder and theft; and still continue to support that philosophy and legitimize it, for what ever reason, they have accepted those crimes as being ‘moral’ and legit, as long as they are used to bring about the results that *they* desire- which, they rationalize “are best”- therefore somehow justifying the use of what ever force may be necessary to impose them upon any who would resist them.
And then they wonder why all these centuries of such; all the money expended; all the technology, has not somehow brought about the utopia- their own personal version of which they’re always trying to shove down everyone else’s throat.
But that’s all that politics amounts to: Using force to manipulate and control others. Right, left, socialist, communist, constitutionalist, conservative, neocon…whatever- anything but Libertarianism/Anarchy/Voluntaryism is nothing more than just arguing about which particular details one wants to force upon everyone else.
Why don’t you move to Somalia? You would be much happier.
It is interesting, Clover, that you constantly resort to threats and insults… because of course you can’t deploy facts (or morality) to defend your positions.
Why should those of us who simply wish to be left in peace and not forced to finance your next EV (as well as your current one) be forced to leave or cede the country to you? We aren’t trying to force you to do (or pay for) anything.
You, on the other hand….
And Somalia? It is afflicted by exactly what you advocate – murderous violence rather than peaceful coexistence.
Somalia? If I wanted to live amongst violent thieving niggers who shit in the street, I would have stayed in NYC. [Maybe they need building codes to force them to purchase terlits!]
Nice reply though, when you have no actual valid points to rebut what we say…..
Building codes exist not only ostensibly to promote public s-a-a-a-a-a-f-t-e-e-e-e, but also to put in features than hopefully will forestall fires, or at least human injury or death thanks to them, or building collapse (earthquake, a real concern here in CA), more to protect the INSURANCE industry from payouts. Beyond what any “code” requires, a builder can build a dwelling like Fort Knox, provided he can sell it at a profit.
It’s all too apparent that one does not need a sufficient IQ to gain the top of the corporate ladder. Only a willingness to step over bodies on the way up.
I first becam awar of GM’s management lunacy when it allowed the bean counters to design or redesign the newest entry into the small car market back in the 70s with the Vega. A literal POS if ever there was one. My older brother bought one…he was a rotary wing mechanic (and pilot) in the Army and was taking auto mechanics at a local community college so he knew a thing or two about maintenance.
Unfortunately the Vega did not. Within 24K it needed a drink of 10W every 40 miles. Within two years every body panel had rusted through. I believe he got a new engine and replaced body panels courtesy GM.
As for me I’ll stick with vans. My first being a 67 Chevy with 283 window van with Positrac…..useless on Northern Michigan roads though. I wish I still had that little beast. With the 283 and being as light as it was, it would get up and go.
My parents had a Vega. Car did leak and burn oil. The oil slick on the driveway was there after the car was long gone. It did make it 8 years and 92K if I recall. The guy who bought it fixed it up and flipped it. So it probably did go on for a while longer.
It’s design was sound. It’s execution was horrific. The only poor design choice was the aluminum block without sleeves. If manufactured properly it was fine. However at GM quality levels at Vega volumes it often was not. Rust protection was probably cut for cost.
A Vega made with today’s materials and coatings with one of the modern small engines in 200+ hp range would probably be a fun car. Small, RWD, MT, simple, light weight. No airbags.
GM did make a sorta high performance Vega, don’t remember what it was called.
It wasn’t a Lockheed Vega.
Siriusly folks…….
Now I remember it was the Cosworth Vega.
Pelosi has been planning for this for over a decade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqPMJFaEdY