I am regularly accused of “hating” electric cars – in the same way I and others who opposed forcing anyone to take a “vaccine” they’d prefer not to take is smeared as being “anti-vax.”
To be fair, I do dislike electric cars.
Chiefly because I like cars more than I like appliances, which is what electric cars are, fundamentally. Because they are all fundamentally the same thing, which tends to bleed off any enthusiasm for one vs. another.
But my hatred is reserved for the forcing of EVs, especially as by forcing non-EVs off the market – as is being done in a very deliberate and systematic way via regulations that non-electric cars cannot comply with or which are so expensive to comply with that the non-electric car is effectively forced off the market without the decency of an outright ban.
The latest example of this being the Biden Thing’s decree – it is styled an “executive order” – kicking up federal fuel efficiency mandatory minimums by some 15 miles-per-gallon, from the current approximately 36 MPG to approximately 50 MPG, by 2026. This is a standard only a few hybrid (partially electric) cars can meet. Which means it is a standard meant to discourage the manufacture of cars that cannot meet it – which means non-hybrid cars.
Eventually, even hybrid cars will be de facto outlawed, too – irrespective of their mileage – because they still burn gas, no matter how efficiently. The de facto ban will be disguised as a ban on (or an impossibly high standard for) carbon dioxide “emissions.”
All of this being artificial, because it is imposed artificially – by government decree. And that is what I hate. I also hate the deliberate suppression of the cons of EV ownership while the putative pros are endlessly extolled. This being of a piece with the way the cons regarding “vaccines” are suppressed while the putative pros are endlessly extolled. It is dishonest and it makes intelligent, informed decision-making much harder.
It is something every reasonable person ought to hate because of the principle it represents – the taking away of choices, by government.
Imagine the choices we might have open to us, were it not for the government decrees and the artificial market created by them.
We would almost certainly be free to choose an EV that reduced our cost of driving – as opposed to increasing it. Such an EV would come at the cost of shorter range and the longer time it takes to recharge, of course. But if it were built specifically for short-range driving, its short range would not be an issue for those who didn’t expect or need it to be capable of long range driving. Such an EV would not need a massive (on average, 1,000-plus pounds in an artificially induced EV) battery pack so as to be capable of long range (and high speed) driving. It would work just fine – for short range driving – with a battery a third the size that would only cost a third as much.
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