Everyone knows that EVs take much longer to recharge than it takes to fill up a gas tank. Also that most EVs don’t go as far on a charge as most cars with engines can go on a tankful. But these aren’t the fundamental problem with EVs.
The fundamental problem is not their tetheredness. It is their connectedness.
EVs are the apotheosis of connectedness. When you plug into a so-called “fast” charger (the term is Orwellian in that it is fundamentally deceptive; yes, it is faster to charge at a commercial “fast” charger than it is to charge at home but it is still much slower than filling up a gas tank) you are plugging into – to borrow term that is useful because it conveys the reality – the matrix. Everyone knows what the matrix is, because everyone has either seen the movies – especially the first one, which was by far the best one – or has heard the word used to convey what the movies were about.
It is a working synonym for the corporate-government entity (the order of priority is intentional because it is accurate) that seeks total awareness and thereby, total control, over everything we are allowed to do.
The word is italicized because that’s exactly the thing. What we are allowed to do. The time of rights is almost ended. They exist perfunctorily, where they are allowed to exist at all. Everything is conditional. Permitted use. Not the right to use. The public right-of-way, for instance – which was once just that. The public – meaning, everyone – had an acknowledged right to freely travel on the roads, which were considered open to all. It is true that these roads were not paved and travel was by foot, horse and carriage – but the point is no one owned the roads in the way that the state now owns them – and exerts its ownership by laying down terms and conditions of usage. Note that the state says it is a privilege to drive. Privileges are not rights. They are what you are allowed to do. Implicit in that is the always-dangling-over-your-head threat that the privilege will be revoked.
How do EVs tie into this?
Well, they literally tie into it – whenever you plug one into a “fast” charger. It is not like buying gas, which can be done anonymously, for one thing – by paying cash for it. You cannot use cash to buy electricity at a commercial “fast” charger. It is credit/debit card/app-only. It is also something else. The electricity is electronically controlled. Gas pumps use electric fuel pumps but that it not the same thing in that the pumps in the underground tanks aren’t tied into the matrix. The “fast” charger kiosks are. They know who is buying electricity whenever electricity is bought because you use electronic means to pay for it – and they can control how much you’re allowed to buy. This has not yet been implemented, in the sense that – for now – no one is prevented from buying electricity – or only allowed to buy some – perhaps because of some “emergency” or perhaps because you are Disobedient.
But the infrastructure for doing just that is already there. It is just a matter of . . . implementation.
You can, of course, avoid the commercial “fast” chargers – assuming you have a home where you can plug in. Even so, unless you are not plugged into the matrix, the power you are allowed to use is still controlled by the matrix.
If you live in an apartment, you do not have that option.
Regardless, the EV is still always subject to being controlled – because it is connected. Gas-engined cars made recently – since about 2010 – are also connected in that they receive over-the-air “updates” and transmit “data” to the matrix, but EVs are even more connected and in a way that gas-engined cars aren’t. A real-world example will perhaps make the point. A few years ago, when a hurricane was bearing down on Florida, Tesla graciously sent out an over-the-air “update” increasing the driving range of Teslas owned by people who lived in the path of the Hurricane, so as to enable their owners to escape the hurricane. This was taken as beneficent of Tesla – and perhaps it was – but consider what’s implicit in this. If an EV’s range can be increased via an over-the-air “update,” then it can also be decreased. It can be reduced to zero – and there is essentially nothing the putative “owner” of the EV can do about it.
Other-brand EVs are just like Teslas in this respect. They are all scaled-up iterations of smartphones, which “update” whether you like it or not and which can and do emit “data” about you that is sent to the matrix. The phone – and the EV – can be altered or bricked at any time via an “update.”
The tragedy is that EVs could be the least connected vehicles. The early EVs – such as the Baker electric that was available more than 100 years ago – were just that. They had simple, user-swappable deep cycle batteries that could be charged at home (and that, today, could also be easily charged at home, not necessarily using grid power, either) and electric motors that weren’t computer controlled. It is interesting to observe that while it is necessary – for effective emissions control as well as good drivability – to use a computer to control the operation of engines, it is not necessary to control an electric motor that way.
It is just more complex and expensive.
Imagine a modernized iteration of those EVs of a century ago. Simple, cheap – and practical, as urban/suburban conveyances. Without any connectedness along for the ride. Why aren’t such EVs available given how appealing that seems?
The question pretty much answers itself, doesn’t it?
. . .
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In the ancient days of wireline phones and windowless telephone company buildings in every town filled with racks of relays, tapping someone’s phone required a physical connection — like, with alligator clips. The target often noticed odd clicks and buzzes that gave away the game.
Currently, in a kind of Mercury retrograde for the NSA spooks, Section 702 FISA authority has expired. They told us the sky would fall if this awful thing were allowed to happen. But so far, it hasn’t.
Given the manifest lawlessness of the Trump regime, we must ask whether the spooks even complied with their loss of legal authority for warrantless surveillance. Did they simply turn the job over to the other Five Eyes countries, or to little Shitrahell, giving themselves plausible deniability?
Or did they, like orthodox Jews setting the oven and elevator on automatic operation for Shabbat, simply leave their Big Data Hoover running and leave the building, giving them plausible deniability: we dindu nuffins?
An old hand lobbyist who was my mentor in the imperial capital told me that trust is a precious commodity in DC — once you lose it, you almost never get it back. Now that the rogue DC regime is murdering people in the eastern Pacific based on profiling, I figure it’s only a matter of time before they turn their guns and rockets on the sorry likes of us.
‘Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any Fedgov becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish the sucker.’ — Thomas ‘TJ’ Jefferson
Whenever the totalitarian capabilities of any given activity are pointed out the response by those pushing such things is “what, you don’t trust us?”.
No.
As you point out as to Tesla’s extending range over-the-air, we’re depending on these fascist* overlord’s benevolence. I ain’t buyin’ it. Self-preservation is one thing ALL entities strive for. Those put in positions of power are no different. They will lay waste to anyone or anything that threatens their position.
Bet on it.
*Fascism as the merger of corporation & state. Not the “you hate Jews” misinterpretation of the concept.