Just some thoughts about the subject:
. . .
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Love your commentary Eric, I’ve been reading you awhile. I picked up a 97 voyager last year — free. V6. I’ve done a lot of work on it but I love the engine and how much I can haul. It’s a true sleeper. In two years I will be exempt from inspection in NJ so going to straight pipe it and really open her up. 132k miles right now and love it more everyday. F the EV’s. There will never be a “breakthrough” in battery technology because you can’t beat physics. EV’s are just tax and control in another form. Keep being the tip of the spear dude.
Man what road is that? I need to take my Sportster down that a few times. I promise you I won’t be a clover! lol
US221 but don’t do the NC section round Grandfather Mountain, it sucks!
No actual force needed. Just a slow pot-boiling phase out: incandescent lightbulbs, 3 gallon toilets and the like.
Tax it to death. Regulate it to death. Prohibit manufacture. Manipulate the market so anything else is a luxury item. No muss, no fuss. Two generations later, no one will even remember.
The forced consumption of EVs will have the apparently intended consequences of pushing people out of their cars and limiting their mobility, but a second-order effect will be pushing more of the population into cities, a la the Chinese model. City populations are considerably more controllable.
So even if the equivalent amount of electricity was cheaper than a gallon of gas (spoiler alert – it’s not), the price of the cheapest EV puts the total cost of ownership way above that of an ICE vehicle. Of course that’s a feature, not a bug.
Exactly, Mike –
Absent the “breakthrough” in battery technology I have been hearing about for 30 years now, EVs will always be more expensive t buy (and own, being shorter lived) than non-EVs. And – yup – that’s a feature, not a bug. I have come to believe that the industry is going this way in part because it designed cars so well that it’s not necessary to buy a new one every six years or less, as it was once. Instead, cars regularly last for 20 years now – which is a long time for the industry to go without a payday…
If the Biden Thing tries to force Americans to give up their gas powered vehicles for an EV, Americans need to stand up and unequivocally shout “No!”
The assumption was the the only reason electrics were more expensive than gasoline cars was scale. If only there were as many electric cars sold as gassers, why they’d be even cheaper due to the simplified drivetrain.
At first glance, that’s a valid observation. But take a closer look. Engines have been mass produced for about a century. They’re not all that complicated, just cast and stamped out metal. Robots do most of the building, so no labor involved. The transmission is pretty complicated but again it’s metal, known technology, out of patents, and automated assembly. Steel is cheap. Cheaper than copper. Cheaper than software for sure. And far easier to QC, so fewer mistakes and bugs.
One reason for electrics being expensive, aside from the lithium and bug chasing, is because they’re new, and required new tooling of the factory. But all those things go into a new econobox too, and yet somehow are much cheaper than any EV.
I think you’re exactly right. The old “government breaks your legs then expects you to thank them for the crutches” ploy to change thinking. No, you see that electric car is cheap, not like that gasoline pollution machine. Problem is, changing mindsets takes decades, perhaps even generations. In between there are plenty of people who see 4 lights, not 5.
‘They’re already doing everything they can to drive non-electric cars off the market.’ — eric
Indeed: the EPA’s proposed Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards, starting in 2027, are explicitly intended to cut gasoline-fueled vehicles to one-third of the market by 2032.
A central-planning simp like EPA admin Michael Regan thinks adjusting EeeVee market share is just a matter of calibrating the ’emissions’ limit to the right number, like turning a dial.
In fact, it’s much more binary than that. Depending on how absurd the required numbers are, some or all manufacturers may just withdraw from even attempting to meet them. And unlike Joe Stalin, Regan can’t dictate production quotas to auto makers.
Using ’emissions’ limits to regulate future market share is an absurdly crude control mechanism. It’s like trying to steer your vehicle using manila ropes tied on the front wheel hubs and running in through the windows. Good luck staying out of the ditch. Stupid commies …
The Big Hammer is the fuel.
Without petrol, gasoline & diesel engines ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Howzabout a massive “carbon tax” on 87 octane unleaded?
At, let’s say, US$24/liter, you won’t see many IC engine vehicles on the highway. The rich folks will likely still spring for a few liters to tool their “collectibles” around Pebble Beach. Jay Leno and others of his ilk (no offense intended) will not feel the pinch, but the rest of us will be royally screwed.
Someone once wondered out loud to me, why did Germany lose World War II? A short (though incomplete) answer is that they ran out of gas.
Very true, Adi –
If they do that – make fuel unaffordable – everyone not living in a 15 minute city will be forced to either move to one to survive or figure out way to survive, isolated from everything and everyone that’s farther away than a horse can get to in a couple of hours and back. The Amish do, so it’s possible. But it will be very hard. And it will make millions extremely mad. I can almost see the hate building for these SOBs…
Hey, Eric,
You could do a piece on the death of what were once locally owned *SERVICE* and repair stations and the “transitioning” of the fueling network to large, company owned “filling stations” with an attached junk food “convenience” store, where (if they even have any of it) you will be charged for compressed air to top up your tire pressure.
A friend who owned and operated an independent Chevron station here in town told me the company charged him more for their products than what they sold them for at the much larger company stations. As well, there are all the environmental hoops, which can be very expensive for small, independent businesses.
Even in the small city where I live, I can point out several locations which formerly were locally owned service stations which now no longer exist. I can remember, when I was a boy, my Dad having the engine in his Chevy pickup being completely rebuilt by a skilled auto mechanic who owned his own 2 bay service station, which typically might have had about four gasoline pumps.
Those were the days (now gone forever) of gasoline price wars, with leaded regular selling for less than $0.30 per gallon, due to brisk competition among small retail businesses.
The “weeding out” of the gasoline supply network has been ongoing for some time. I expect that, as “EEEVee” charging stations proliferate (by government fatwa, until the copper supply runs out), we are likely to see a simultaneous decrease in the number of gasoline stations.
Good luck finding a place to fuel your IC engine on the Interstate, ten years from now, if the U.S. Government has its way. You might have to carry your own fuel supply, if you wish to travel any distance. Shades of the Arab oil embargo of the mid 1970s, for those who remember it.
Buy your Jerry cans now. 🙂
And also what’s “unseen” like what someone who’s intelligent enough to thrive in an Amish lifestyle could be doing instead of tending to the horses and mending the plow.
The forum account “registration” is a little bit too much like FB and Twitter and others for me. Why can’t we comment there using the same handle/process as on the main site?