"... and the attacks they are facing now. In both eras, electric cars struggled to gain acceptance in the marketplace and were undermined by politics. A big knock against them was they had to be charged and ultimately were considered less convenient than vehicles with internal combustion engines.... Charging and access to fuel were also concerns a century earlier.... They also had to overcome gender stereotypes. Their benefits like quiet, smooth operation were considered by some men to be too feminine, and, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many models like the Baker Electric were explicitly marketed only to women.... In the fall of 2022, Representative Majorie Taylor Greene [said].... 'There’s nothing more American than the roar of a V-8 engine under the hood of a Ford Mustang or Chevy Camaro, an incredible feel of all that horsepower.' But Democrats, she said, 'want to emasculate the way we drive.'... 'Musk has done everything he could to try to make a Tesla a manly vehicle,' said Virginia Scharff, ... author of... 'Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age.'... But, Ms. Scharff added, Mr. Musk may have gone too far... 'Tesla is so associated with a kind of toxic masculinity now...'..."
... undermined by politics. A big knock against them was they had to be charged and ultimately were considered less convenient than vehicles with internal combustion engines...
Climate hysteria, the narrative that has engendered the entire rise of the electric vehicle industry, the Green New Deal, the war on coal and petroleum, the War on Gas Mileage, doesn't even rate an Honorable Mention in this article? My - how times have changed.
Not one of the pull-quote "knocks" against early EVs had to do with politics. My favorite is the "overcoming gender stereotypes" thing, wherein men of the past century thought they were too quiet (or at least we're told that companies producing them marketed them to women because they were quieter), but now Musk has rendered EVs (or at least his versions of them) too masculine. So, more of a perpendicular than a parallel?
I drive a muscle car, and when I notice other drivers, I'm not the only woman to do so. Of course, we're all of a certain age. I haven't seen young women lining up for the roar.
The early car industry also experimented with using alcohol as a fuel. That was abandoned because it was more expensive than gas and less energy efficient.
One thing I didn't see in the excerpts is that in 1909 having access to electricity was far from a sure thing. You're not that far from Edison touring the country electrocuting turkeys to prove that alternating current was way to dangerous and the rural electrification act was a couple of decades down the road.
Electric failed then because it was not practical. The same reason it will fail this time. Take away the government subsidies and mandates and the electric cars will fade quicker than a phart in a force 9 gale. Any technology that relies on a foreign enemy for a major part of the car is doomed from the outset. The entirety of the exercise is about government control of the citizenry and nothing more.
Its fun to talk about men v. women, but before WW 1, you'd only get electricity for your car in big cities. Try using an electric car in Mississippi or Wyoming in 1911. LOL.
The other problem was cost. You buy a Ford Roadster for 1/2 the price of a Baker electric car. When Model T got going into mass, mass, production the cost difference became even greater.
"Not one of the pull-quote "knocks" against early EVs had to do with politics."
There was this, which I didn't quote: "A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil. The oil industry has enjoyed numerous tax breaks. One was enacted in 1926 when Congress allowed oil companies to deduct their taxable income by 27.5 percent of their sales. The sponsor of the legislation later admitted that the incentive was excessive. “We grabbed 27.5 percent because we were not only hogs but the odd figure made it appear as though it was scientifically arrived at,” Senator Tom Connally, the Texas Democrat who sponsored the break, was quoted as saying...."
This is terrible English: "deduct their taxable income by 27.5 percent of their sales."
I'm not going to link to it here, but there is footage on the internet taken in 1903 where Edison electrocutes an elephant to try to discredit alternating current.
"Arashi said... Electric failed then because it was not practical. The same reason it will fail this time. Take away the government subsidies and mandates and the electric cars will fade quicker than a phart in a force 9 gale."
The first part is true, they electric vehicle failed because it was stupid technology. The second part is absolutely FALSE. The electric car will take over ice car, it is inevitable. It will be cheaper, more features than ice cars. The drive train and the battery technology will continue to improve and become lower in cost. The removal of ev mandates is a good thing, but the benefits of evs will win out in the end. Again, it's inevitable.
There is so much waste heat involved in internal combustion mechanics that there's ample room for electrics to evolve into a technology with some real advantages of efficiency, but only when battery technology matures into something providing a lifetime cost that approximates the cost of hydrocarbon-based fuel. We're not there yet. However, one can't fault Musk for making a substantial investment in the charging infrastructure. Even my little town has a 9-port charging station under construction.
Kate said... "the green agenda can pry the wheel of my car from my cold, dead hands."
Preach it, sister! Mustang man myself, and every now and then you gotta rev it up and run through the gears. Also, driving a 6-speed stick is a great theft deterrent. Most morons don't know how to drive a stick. I've ridden in a Tesla, and no doubt it could roast my 'Stang, but it's far too antiseptic (if that's the right word). It's got no soul.
Buy an electric car if you want, they are pretty cool, but stop demanding it.
Althouse @9:45, thank you! I figured there had to be ONE example of a political advantage given to IC engines in there somewhere, so I was surprised when none appeared.
Though in truth, a tax break for hydrocarbon producers doesn't specifically benefit IC vehicles vs EV. In fact, considering that hydrocarbons are still the source of a lot of electricity and the backstop of even more, one could say that such a tax break benefits EVs too.
Yup. My guess is the EV critical mass will occur when some smaat kid invents a hybrid capacitor-battery that can be charged in minutes and discharged over many hours.
Everybody knows that the Tesla is the ultimate muscle car. It's completely understandable by women like Marjorie Taylor green enjoy the loping rumble of an American V8 engine that vibrates up into there bucket seat. It's not a different effect then they feeling one gets at the base of the saddle horn on a galloping stallion.
I've ridden in a Stanley Steamer, it was smooth and quiet. The guy who owned it wanted to bring back steam power and spent his time building steam engines. His selling pitch wasn't much different from what we hear about electric.
Of course the government is going to encourage the oil industry in the early 20th century. The ICE allows such things as chainsaws, powered lumber mills in rural areas, heavy trucks to transport goods to and from railheads, the development of various weapons of war including fighter and bomber planes, tanks, and much improved battleships.
The development of the ICE changed the nature of warfare and all the major western powers were, by the 1920s, well aware of that. They needed oil and they did whatever was necessary to obtain it.
Also, there is an entire chemical industry reliant on the byproducts produced when you refine oil.
One key factor in the transition from EVs to ICE autos was the development of the battery powered starter. Having to crank start an auto was a huge negative... (Find me a kick start on a highway capable road bike today.)
"Musk has done everything he could to try to make a Tesla a manly vehicle," If that's true, why do I dislike them so much? I kind of liked the Roadster, but it was only sold for 4 years and fewer than 3000 were sold. It was also a little hefty. Now, make my Honda Odyssey (The Pinnacle of Automotive Achievement) electric, and we can talk!
"A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil."
The complication ignored by the NYT is question of generation. Even if the early electric cars got the "thumbed scale" political benefit, the generation industry, which is nothing but the child of the fuel industry (petroleum and coal) wedded to other industries (mining for transmission lines, heavy engineers for turbines, heavy construction for steam plants and hydroelectric dams) would have need even greater tax incentives to make Bakers and Milburns into something more mobile than chicken coops. Given the inefficiency of lead-acid batteries, favoring gasoline automobiles over electrics was by far the more rational path.
they don't want to you to have a car, the 15 minute city, recall, well the nobility will have that privilege but not the peasants, as with air conditioning and private airt ravel, we must sacrifice to the skydragon
Try using an electric car in Mississippi or Wyoming in 1911. LOL.
And it's still an issue in some parts of the country in 2025. I could absolutely use a Tesla as a commuter car here in the Twin Cities, as we have charging stations all over the metro, but my 11-year old Honda Accord is a hell of a lot cheaper and it's definitely more reliable when it's -15.
for the Pro EV folk here.. a Simple Question. IF i live in an apartment, or otherwise Don't have parking.. HOW am i supposed to charge an EV? please be honest
For most people electric vehicles still are just not practical and reliable transportation. Maybe some day , but not 100 years ago or today. Trying to blame politics for the shortcomings of EVs is absurd — but just what would expect from the NYT and the “scholars” relied on by the Times.
i went to Wyoming last Sunday, came back on Tuesday. during the trip i spent a TOTAL of about 15 minutes getting gas.
it was about 1,800 miles round trip. (gas was cheapest in Casper ($2.82), next cheapest in Eastern Neb ($2.91).
oh! Bonus Question! don't you have to rotate your tires on an EV? I get my oil changed on my Honda HRV when i rotate my tires, whether the oil needs it or not.
"Scholars who have studied the earlier age of electric vehicles see parallels in their demise in the early decades of the 1900s... and the attacks they are facing now. In both eras, electric cars struggled to gain acceptance in the marketplace and were undermined by politics. "
Why do some people *cough*lefties*cough* have to drag politics into everything? I mean, she gets it in the very next sentence:
"A big knock against them was they had to be charged and ultimately were considered less convenient than vehicles with internal combustion engines.... "
Why does she have to lard it up with all the other bullshit? I guess if she didn't, she wouldn't have an article, but who buys all the other crap? There are a host of real problems with EVs. First and foremost, the charging time. If they solve that and everybody has one, we don't have nearly the grid capacity to sustain the fleet. Real world problems. The only politics is the people trying to shove these things down our unwilling throats .
"I've ridden in a Stanley Steamer, it was smooth and quiet."
Steam cars failed because of their inefficiency compared to mature internal combustion engines. Steam has failed to compete with internal combustion everywhere except in the highest output systems devoted to generation where the thermodynamics work in steam's favor, particularly where cooling water is cheaply available. Something mobile like an steam automobile must throttle the output down far below peak efficiency to keep the heat stress at a manageable level. This is why diesel power overtook steam turbines in commercial marine applications after WWII. There's hardly a commercial vessel afloat that isn't direct-drive or diesel-electric because even those applications do not require the high-outputs steam turbines can provide efficiently, despite the available cooling water that envelopes a ship at sea. (Naval applications are quite different, where speed or unrefueled range are vitally strategic considerations.) Steam works on land generating electricity from hydrocarbon fuels or nuclear fission, or at sea in a military context for extreme endurance or extreme stealth, but not in automobiles, nor locomotives, nor commercial shipping. When TEGs mature into high-output systems, steam will vanish from naval architecture as well.
NYT said: "A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil."
Quaestor replied..."The complication ignored by the NYT is question of generation."
Yeah, this is weak thinking on the part of the NYT author. You can use an ICE vehicle to haul gasoline to a rural distribution facility (a.k.a. gas station) for other ICE vehicles, essentially bootstraping the entire system. Rural access to electricity required a build out of the entire grid. That was always going to take decades.
The situation is similar today. An all EV fleet is going to essentially require rebuilding the entire grid.
Electric female-only cars, internal combusion muscle cars, bah humbug. Give a girl a horse to ride as a child and she'll understand more about men, and herself, than you can possibly imagine when an adult.
"gilbar said... for the Pro EV folk here.. a Simple Question. IF i live in an apartment, or otherwise Don't have parking.. HOW am i supposed to charge an EV? please be honest"
I sell EV chargers and focus on multi-family apartments. We use a power sharing product, a single 240V 60A circuit can be used for four chargers. Apartment complexes are putting them in to attract and retain tenants. In CA, AZ, and FL demand is so great that owners can make money off charger use, or by providing dedicated spots.
The EV is the first personal car that I have bought that the little woman actually likes to ride in, but if you live in an apartment or other home with street parking only, it’s gonna be a PIA.
Back of the envelope, gilbar, with my experience with my car, assuming the chargers are well distributed and all working, I am looking at 12 hrs charging time and paying roughly the same as gas. EV works great for local driving and home charging, it’s better than gas in that case.
EV's are great, but have significant limitations--particularly for rural populations. And they are ultimately no more "carbon-neutral" than ICE's. And there are a bazillion gallons of oil available for relatively cheap use and exploitation. Which will get used.
Addressing gilbar’s question about how do you charge an EV if you live in an apartment…Well, sometimes you don’t. Maybe your apartment complex has installed EV chargers, but maybe not, or there aren’t enough. Or maybe your city has abolished the requirement for apartments to have sufficient parking spaces for all tenants, so you’re parking on the street.
The larger issue is that those pushing the wholesale electrification of automobiles need to get a life. I have a Tesla; I bought it when gas in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia was north of $6 per gallon. I like my Tesla a lot; it’s not a perfect car by any means but as far as performance goes, I can leave the vast majority of ICE cars in the dust at any speed range from zero to 100 mph, and the car handles quite well, especially after I ditched the OEM Michelins for Pirelli P-Zeros. And at $6 per gallon gas, by using cheap overnight power to charge, I was saving around 80% on “fuel” costs (somewhat less now because gas prices are down a bit, and electricity prices are also unfortunately up a bit). Oh, and I should mention that I got no subsidy - federal or state - on mine.
But no honest EV owner will tell you there are no trade offs. To gilbar’s point, if you can’t reliably charge overnight using cheapish electricity to an 80% state of charge (which, practically speaking , means having a house with a 240 volt charging system installed), living with an EV becomes significantly more difficult. If you need to drive more than, say, 250 miles in a day, you will need to plan your trip around available charging stations, which may be plentiful in coastal SoCal but maybe not in, say, rural Montana. And 15-30 minute stops every 2 hours is in fact a major detriment to trip time for the vast majority of people. Cold weather significantly degrades battery performance, so if you don’t live and/or drive in a temperate clime such as the aforementioned coastal SoCal, that 250 mile practical range is now more like 175 miles. And that EV shill saying that on average, people only drive 40 miles per day? How many things do you buy for the average case? “Sorry honey, but your doctor is a 50 mile round trip so it’s outside the range of our car and you’ll have to take a bus or taxi” isn’t going to fly in most households…
I think EVs make sense for a fair chunk of people, but (a) they shouldn’t be forced on people, (b) they shouldn’t be subsidized, and (c) people should go into an EV purchase with eyes wide open, not clouded over by fast talk from someone who secretly wants to eliminate all cars anyway.
Oh, and one more thing about the EV performance: I’m a gearhead from way back; used to do all my own customization and maintenance on my cars. Manual transmission too, heel and toe, double-clutching, late apex, the works. Loved the sound of a small block V8 or a straight six winding up. With the Tesla (a Model 3 Long Range, not even the Performance model), yeah, I don’t get that sweet exhaust note, but the amount of sustained and instantaneous torque I have under my right foot is intoxicating, even if it’s mostly silent. And when you’re barreling down a twisty road, having regen braking available on the single pedal is a whole new exercise in fun.
Our two cars are both manuals. I used to consider the "unstealable" claim dubious, but I have run into attendants who I hand the car over to who couldn't drive them, so maybe there's some truth to it.
There isn't enough capacity of generation or transmission lines to support widespread adoption of electric cars. Period. In California it's all they can do to keep the lights on as it is.
After Hurricane Sandy in 2012 over 8 million people were without power. My brother's house in NJ is 5 miles inland yet had no power for at least two weeks. My home in NY flooded and was without power for over 30 days. My second floor tenants never left, basically camping out in home without power or heat for over a month. The gas came back first, allowing them heat with the use of a gas operated generator. People were able to leave the no power zone to obtain gas as well as food. If all the thousands of people camping out in their homes only had electric vehicles with no way to recharge over night- I cannot imagine how much worse things would have been.
"A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil."
The complication ignored by the NYT is the question of generation. Even if the early electric cars had received the "thumbed scale" political benefit actual granted to the petroleum industry, the generation industry, which is nothing but the child of the fuel industry (petroleum and coal) wedded to other industries (mining for transmission lines, heavy engineering for turbines, heavy construction for steam plants and hydroelectric dams) would have needed even greater tax incentives to make Bakers and Milburns into something more mobile than chicken coops. Given the inefficiency of lead-acid batteries, favoring gasoline automobiles over electrics was by far the more rational path.
Sometimes a car is--just a car. It's hard to see Teslas as exuding or representing "toxic masculinity" Now give me a 66 Pointiac GTO with the TriCarb 389 and we might be talking about something. Or a good old Dodge Ram dually with a Cummins diesel up front.
Poor Marge. My EV waxes V8’s all the time and does it silently. Maybe she, a white trash goober, likes excessive carbon emissions from dudes named Cletus who have small genitals, but ppl who want a fast car, choose a more efficient and cheaper to maintain alternative to her silly Camaros
And one more thing. Did this lady ever hear of the Rural Electrification Administration? A good portion of the country (okay, hicks in the sticks) was without electrical power of any kind well into the 1930s. Same goes for the effect of the TVA in the South. If you don't have any electricity, it's not politics that killed the electric car in those areas.
This preference for ICE cars over electric cars had nothing to do with "gender stereotypes." ICE cars 100 years ago were very loud, dirty and very smelly. It was all about the cost and convenience, not gender.
Most American households did not have access to electricity in the 1910s. It wasn't until the 1920s that they started to get electricity installed in their homes. Electric vehicles were a toy for the rich back then. Whereas ICE cars provided a convienent and affordable form of personal transportation for the average person.
According to Wikipedia: "In the early 20th century, the high cost, low top speed, and short range of battery electric vehicles, compared to internal combustion engine vehicles, led to a worldwide decline in their use as private motor vehicles."
It's only been because of recent technology that these problems have been minimized, but not totally solved. Many people still have problems finding places to charge their electric cars. Plus, there's still the fact that it can take hours to charge an electric car but only a few minutes to fill a tank with gasoline. (And fast chargers require a tremendous amount of current, so they can't be installed in residential areas.)
ROCEAN hit on it. In 1910 half the country had no electricity. That Included large parts of our major cities. Electricity as a utility was new. There is nothing wrong with a Tesla. Good looks lots of power, but the 45 minute charge time is a deal breaker. I think I mentioned before that if someone could build an electric F 150 with the same range and capacity that charges in 15 minutes they'll have a world beater.
This article demonstrates what is wrong with the New York Times.
They're constantly putting out garbage reporting like this. It happens so consistantly, where the facts and conclusions are totally wrong, that it's obvious that they're pushing an agenda instead of trying to deliver factual and correct articles.
Why would you need a 15-30 minute stop every 2 hours to go 120 miles??? The new model y is 356miles range. Even at 80% capacity that is 284 miles. At 70? Mph that is 4 hours. Just curious.
Why would you need a 15-30 minute stop every 2 hours to go 120 miles
The first minutes of a charging stop the batteries fill very quickly, then the charging speed tapers and the batteries fill more slowly. So a cross country strategy is to charge only during the fastest speeds, usually 15-20 minutes, until the charge speed begins to taper off then drive on to the next stop…
"Scholars who have studied the earlier age of electric vehicles see parallels in their demise in the early decades of the 1900s and the attacks they are facing now."
I have nothing against electric cars but I am opposed to to government subsidies for purchasing them. I can see buying an electric in the future but the tech has to make some big improvements first. I just got back from a 10 day, 2500+ mile road trip and if I had to find chargers and then wait for the time it took to charge the batteries, it would have been an 11 day road trip or longer.
"The electric car will take over ice car, it is inevitable." ************************ It won't be inevitable until EVS cannot burst into unquenchable flames and---as they do now---burn a dozen ICE vehicles parked near them .
That niggling detail will not be solved using current battery technologies.
As a result EVs are being banned from parking garages, and insurers will not cover damage to homes with EVs parked in attached garages.
IOW EVs are about as inevitable as fusion power---always just down the road.
"That niggling detail will not be solved using current battery technologies."
I think it already has been, to some extent. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are a lot more stable than the lithium cobalt flavor, and are in a significant number, though not the majority, of EVs. They aren't as popular because they have a lower specific energy. So the trade-off is range vs having your house burn down.
I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk (very interesting; I recommend it) and note that electric cars made Musk the richest man in the world. I don't know if that fact means you should or should not buy an electric car. Me, I'm sticking with my gas -powered 2016 Buick (new Buicks are now all electric).
"Systemic, the No. 1 with a bullet most abused word in English."
Right up there with widespread electoral fraud.
re: parking garages and EVs; apparently parking garages have been engineered for the average weight of ICE cars (no surprise there) and the much higher weight of EVs essentially means they all have to be torn down and rebuilt if we are to have an all EV fleet).
“Why would you need a 15-30 minute stop every 2 hours to go 120 miles???”
My M3 has a predicted range of 315 miles at 100% charge. At typical moderate traffic speeds, like the ones you you would encounter on the interstate from, say, LA to Flagstaff (a little over 450 miles), you should expect to be driving 75 mph, maybe as much as 80-85 mph in some parts. At those speeds, you’ll be doing good to get 80% of that range, which works out to 250 miles. (Note that EV efficiency at highway speeds is dominated by aerodynamic drag; the power required to overcome drag goes up as the cube of the speed. ICE car efficiency doesn’t start becoming as drag-dominated as an EV until significantly faster.) So, best case, you’re looking at one recharge stop, but time-wise, that’s not the optimum: that one stop will consume close to an hour, because you’ll need to charge back to 100%. If you only charge to, say, 70% at that first stop, you can be back on the road in about 30 minutes. Your next stop can be maybe 15 minutes to get you to Flagstaff with enough juice to drive around a bit before you have to find a Supercharger or plug into you hotel’s Level 2 charger for some hours.
But you’re still down 45 minutes of charging for that 6 to maybe 7 hours of behind-the-wheel time. For a reasonably efficient ICE car with a decent-sized tank, you can do that trip with one 5-minute gas stop. Some people would never drive that trip without a 45-60 minute stop for eat/drink/bodily functions, so maybe it’s a wash for them, assuming they can mesh up the charge and the eat etc. stop; for me, I usually want to put off the eating until I’m there, so in this hypothetical, I’d hit the head at the gas station and just keep pressing.
This is an example of how things can differ between doing a long trip in an EV vs an ICE car. Not claiming one is better that the other, just that there are differences and a prospective EV buyer should educate himself/herself about them. Real-world range is a big one.
I talked to a single mother with 2 pre-school kids who had ended up living in an apartment and putting 50,000 miles a year on her Model Y Long Range. 100% Supercharging. A great car, but it is so painful thinking of all the time she is spending waiting for her vehicle to charge.
I, on the hand, have a garage with a Level 2 charger and my Model 3 Standard Range always has plenty of charge, and the only time I spend on it is unrolling the cable every couple days and spooling it up the next morning. For me, my vehicle is the most convenient car, for her, it’s painfully impractical. And the house she’s moving into only has 100 Amp service, so it’s going to take some seriously expensive electrical upgrades to get her to where I’m at.
There are current state issues with EVs, currently. That is simply because infrastructure is not present. This doesn’t mean it will not be present in the future.
But also, EVs don’t have to completely replace ICEs, especially in the short term.
Charging will forever be an issue, but we (or the next generation) will be used to it. Remember when you didn’t need to charge your phone for a week or so? (Pepperidge Farm remembers) Now it’s a daily occurrence. Charging locations are everywhere. This demonstrates the adaptability to changes in technology.
“Everybody knows that the Tesla is the ultimate muscle car. It's completely understandable by women like Marjorie Taylor green enjoy the loping rumble of an American V8 engine that vibrates up into there bucket seat.”
My favorite is the electric Mercedes G Wagon. When they say 4 wheel drive, they mean an electric motor for each wheel. Run them at slightly different speeds, and you can have better turning. But what’s really neat is when they run in opposite directions, esp on dirt or gravel. Then the vehicles spin in place.
Step son has a wife who is into leftist virtue signaling. He earns enough that he can indulge her. They showed up in a Tesla around Christmas a year and a half ago. The boys loved the programming. Their Tesla played Christmas carols for us, accompanied by a light show. They came to NE Phoenix from Vail, just east of Tucson, and had to recharge for 45 minutes on the way back. We did that trip last week, round trip, in our heavy Mercedes ICE SUV, in just over a half tank of gas.
Recently, with the unpopularity of Musk with that segment of the population, they bought a Rivian SUV. Most are over $100k.
Two years ago, our mostly Gen X Yuppie block in NE PHX, was about 50% EVs and hybrids. Four houses in a row, including ours, had 4 Teslae, and we didn’t have one. Had mostly German ICEs (2xAudis, 1xMercedes) instead. Now, with Musk’s unpopularity, most of them over half of them are gone now, replaced by German ICEs (Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and a lone VW, in that order). Most common vehicle now on the block is the Audi Q5 (and SQ5).
Kate said... “I drive a muscle car, and when I notice other drivers, I'm not the only woman to do so.”
3+ decades ago, there was an older woman who would pull into the parking lot driving a brand new special edition Firebird with the twin turbo V6 out of the Buick GNX. Not many people knew about that particular model. But she was an object of envy who knew what she was driving.
“Of course, we're all of a certain age. I haven't seen young women lining up for the roar.”
I think part of it is generational. We grew up when those cars were the stuff of teen-age dreams. Millennials and younger when they get older will probably drive Civic Type Rs or Golf Rs.
They like to talk about Tesla sales sliding, but they never include what's happening to other electric vehicle sales from traditional gas car companies. They have been falling off the cliff. With Congress and the President ending the special EPA exception that allowed California (and several other states) to eventually eliminate the sale of gas cars, that fall will probably be steeper, as gas car companies shed their electric albatrosses. Personally, if my wife could still drive, I would get her a used Tesla, maybe one of the Hertz models. She never drove very far anyway. I'd be responsible for keeping it charged, just like I was responsible for keeping gas in her car. I saw the Leno video with the story above this about billionaires, so let me replay some of that comment. Jay talked about how the Baker was his wife's favorite for seeing the Christmas lights and going to dinner. That backed up a suspicion I had about Jay's purchase of the top-of-the-line electric Rolls-Royce. When it comes to new vehicles, Jay is performance oriented, where the e-RR is all about quiet and comfort. I believe he bought it to cocoon his wife, who is going the stages of dementia, in quiet and comfort as they go to shop, to dinner, and to her doctor's appointments.
A new Model Y will be able to drive itself unsupervised in a few weeks, supposedly.
Last week Williams Shatner was asking on X about buying a Tesla and it made me think that for those who have the means, an unsupervised FSD capable one will allow mobility to be extended to the aged and handicapped.
I would want the newer model with a front bumper camera and hardware 4.
One thing to know about the future of battery cars vs gas cars is that the worldwide volume of new gas cars peaked in 2017. The manufacturing volume is down about 20% from then. Battery cars have more than made up for the difference.
I see the comment "the EV bubble is bursting" sometimes. The manufacturing volumes don't support that. Another trend is that the multiple Chinese manufacturers are building good cars and getting acceptance in many countries. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were the names in my youth. Watch for BYD, Geely, and Proton in the future.
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संदेश
103 टिप्पणियां:
"electric cars struggled to gain acceptance in the marketplace and were undermined by politics"
undermined?
you keep using that word.. i no think that word means what you think it means
... undermined by politics. A big knock against them was they had to be charged and ultimately were considered less convenient than vehicles with internal combustion engines...
Sorry?
Climate hysteria, the narrative that has engendered the entire rise of the electric vehicle industry, the Green New Deal, the war on coal and petroleum, the War on Gas Mileage, doesn't even rate an Honorable Mention in this article? My - how times have changed.
Not one of the pull-quote "knocks" against early EVs had to do with politics. My favorite is the "overcoming gender stereotypes" thing, wherein men of the past century thought they were too quiet (or at least we're told that companies producing them marketed them to women because they were quieter), but now Musk has rendered EVs (or at least his versions of them) too masculine. So, more of a perpendicular than a parallel?
I drive a muscle car, and when I notice other drivers, I'm not the only woman to do so. Of course, we're all of a certain age. I haven't seen young women lining up for the roar.
Also, the green agenda can pry the wheel of my car from my cold, dead hands.
Thinking that being subsidized and having your competition banned by the government equates to "undermined by politics"?
Only if you're an idiot.
"She's very feminine but does seem to know about 'the business underneath,' the 'shaft drive.'"
And she knows who provides the wherewithal. One wonders if that mustachioed plutocrat is father or otherwise daddy?
The early car industry also experimented with using alcohol as a fuel. That was abandoned because it was more expensive than gas and less energy efficient.
One thing I didn't see in the excerpts is that in 1909 having access to electricity was far from a sure thing. You're not that far from Edison touring the country electrocuting turkeys to prove that alternating current was way to dangerous and the rural electrification act was a couple of decades down the road.
Electric failed then because it was not practical. The same reason it will fail this time. Take away the government subsidies and mandates and the electric cars will fade quicker than a phart in a force 9 gale. Any technology that relies on a foreign enemy for a major part of the car is doomed from the outset. The entirety of the exercise is about government control of the citizenry and nothing more.
Its fun to talk about men v. women, but before WW 1, you'd only get electricity for your car in big cities. Try using an electric car in Mississippi or Wyoming in 1911. LOL.
Kudos, Kate!
The other problem was cost. You buy a Ford Roadster for 1/2 the price of a Baker electric car. When Model T got going into mass, mass, production the cost difference became even greater.
If I want to drive a damned golf cart, I’ll go golfing.
"Not one of the pull-quote "knocks" against early EVs had to do with politics."
There was this, which I didn't quote: "A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil. The oil industry has enjoyed numerous tax breaks. One was enacted in 1926 when Congress allowed oil companies to deduct their taxable income by 27.5 percent of their sales. The sponsor of the legislation later admitted that the incentive was excessive. “We grabbed 27.5 percent because we were not only hogs but the odd figure made it appear as though it was scientifically arrived at,” Senator Tom Connally, the Texas Democrat who sponsored the break, was quoted as saying...."
This is terrible English: "deduct their taxable income by 27.5 percent of their sales."
I'm not going to link to it here, but there is footage on the internet taken in 1903 where Edison electrocutes an elephant to try to discredit alternating current.
"Arashi said...
Electric failed then because it was not practical. The same reason it will fail this time. Take away the government subsidies and mandates and the electric cars will fade quicker than a phart in a force 9 gale."
The first part is true, they electric vehicle failed because it was stupid technology. The second part is absolutely FALSE. The electric car will take over ice car, it is inevitable.
It will be cheaper, more features than ice cars. The drive train and the battery technology will continue to improve and become lower in cost. The removal of ev mandates is a good thing, but the benefits of evs will win out in the end. Again, it's inevitable.
There is so much waste heat involved in internal combustion mechanics that there's ample room for electrics to evolve into a technology with some real advantages of efficiency, but only when battery technology matures into something providing a lifetime cost that approximates the cost of hydrocarbon-based fuel. We're not there yet. However, one can't fault Musk for making a substantial investment in the charging infrastructure. Even my little town has a 9-port charging station under construction.
Kate said... "the green agenda can pry the wheel of my car from my cold, dead hands."
Preach it, sister! Mustang man myself, and every now and then you gotta rev it up and run through the gears. Also, driving a 6-speed stick is a great theft deterrent. Most morons don't know how to drive a stick. I've ridden in a Tesla, and no doubt it could roast my 'Stang, but it's far too antiseptic (if that's the right word). It's got no soul.
Buy an electric car if you want, they are pretty cool, but stop demanding it.
Althouse @9:45, thank you! I figured there had to be ONE example of a political advantage given to IC engines in there somewhere, so I was surprised when none appeared.
Though in truth, a tax break for hydrocarbon producers doesn't specifically benefit IC vehicles vs EV. In fact, considering that hydrocarbons are still the source of a lot of electricity and the backstop of even more, one could say that such a tax break benefits EVs too.
Yup. My guess is the EV critical mass will occur when some smaat kid invents a hybrid capacitor-battery that can be charged in minutes and discharged over many hours.
Everybody knows that the Tesla is the ultimate muscle car. It's completely understandable by women like Marjorie Taylor green enjoy the loping rumble of an American V8 engine that vibrates up into there bucket seat. It's not a different effect then they feeling one gets at the base of the saddle horn on a galloping stallion.
I've ridden in a Stanley Steamer, it was smooth and quiet. The guy who owned it wanted to bring back steam power and spent his time building steam engines. His selling pitch wasn't much different from what we hear about electric.
Of course the government is going to encourage the oil industry in the early 20th century. The ICE allows such things as chainsaws, powered lumber mills in rural areas, heavy trucks to transport goods to and from railheads, the development of various weapons of war including fighter and bomber planes, tanks, and much improved battleships.
The development of the ICE changed the nature of warfare and all the major western powers were, by the 1920s, well aware of that. They needed oil and they did whatever was necessary to obtain it.
Also, there is an entire chemical industry reliant on the byproducts produced when you refine oil.
One key factor in the transition from EVs to ICE autos was the development of the battery powered starter. Having to crank start an auto was a huge negative... (Find me a kick start on a highway capable road bike today.)
"Musk has done everything he could to try to make a Tesla a manly vehicle,"
If that's true, why do I dislike them so much? I kind of liked the Roadster, but it was only sold for 4 years and fewer than 3000 were sold. It was also a little hefty.
Now, make my Honda Odyssey (The Pinnacle of Automotive Achievement) electric, and we can talk!
"A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil."
The complication ignored by the NYT is question of generation. Even if the early electric cars got the "thumbed scale" political benefit, the generation industry, which is nothing but the child of the fuel industry (petroleum and coal) wedded to other industries (mining for transmission lines, heavy engineers for turbines, heavy construction for steam plants and hydroelectric dams) would have need even greater tax incentives to make Bakers and Milburns into something more mobile than chicken coops. Given the inefficiency of lead-acid batteries, favoring gasoline automobiles over electrics was by far the more rational path.
"Arashi said...
Electric failed then because it was not practical. The same reason it will fail this time"
Counted a few cars parked on the street yesterday. 39 vehicles, 13 houses. Does not take into account the ones in garages.
Typical of every neighborhood here. The apartment complexes are surrounded by cars parked on the street bumper to bumper.
Tough for average person to charge an EV.
There are many new charging stations installed in shopping centers. Six chargers seems to be max so far.
Howard:
That battery has been invented. The manufacturer is Enovix; doing cell phones now.
they don't want to you to have a car, the 15 minute city, recall, well the nobility will have that privilege but not the peasants,
as with air conditioning and private airt ravel, we must sacrifice to the skydragon
Interesting that the ad depicts a winter scene. That's when the temperature really reduces the capacity of the battery.
This ad runs a decade or two before waste heat from the engine was used to heat the cabin.
“She's very feminine but does seem to know about "the business underneath," the "shaft drive."“
I don’t need to add anything here, let’s just leave this one alone.
Try using an electric car in Mississippi or Wyoming in 1911. LOL.
And it's still an issue in some parts of the country in 2025. I could absolutely use a Tesla as a commuter car here in the Twin Cities, as we have charging stations all over the metro, but my 11-year old Honda Accord is a hell of a lot cheaper and it's definitely more reliable when it's -15.
for the Pro EV folk here.. a Simple Question.
IF i live in an apartment, or otherwise Don't have parking..
HOW am i supposed to charge an EV?
please be honest
For most people electric vehicles still are just not practical and reliable transportation. Maybe some day , but not 100 years ago or today. Trying to blame politics for the shortcomings of EVs is absurd — but just what would expect from the NYT and the “scholars” relied on by the Times.
i went to Wyoming last Sunday, came back on Tuesday.
during the trip i spent a TOTAL of about 15 minutes getting gas.
it was about 1,800 miles round trip. (gas was cheapest in Casper ($2.82), next cheapest in Eastern Neb ($2.91).
oh! Bonus Question! don't you have to rotate your tires on an EV?
I get my oil changed on my Honda HRV when i rotate my tires, whether the oil needs it or not.
Bad english but proper accounting terminology.
"Scholars who have studied the earlier age of electric vehicles see parallels in their demise in the early decades of the 1900s... and the attacks they are facing now. In both eras, electric cars struggled to gain acceptance in the marketplace and were undermined by politics. "
Why do some people *cough*lefties*cough* have to drag politics into everything? I mean, she gets it in the very next sentence:
"A big knock against them was they had to be charged and ultimately were considered less convenient than vehicles with internal combustion engines.... "
Why does she have to lard it up with all the other bullshit? I guess if she didn't, she wouldn't have an article, but who buys all the other crap? There are a host of real problems with EVs. First and foremost, the charging time. If they solve that and everybody has one, we don't have nearly the grid capacity to sustain the fleet. Real world problems. The only politics is the people trying to shove these things down our unwilling throats .
"I've ridden in a Stanley Steamer, it was smooth and quiet."
Steam cars failed because of their inefficiency compared to mature internal combustion engines. Steam has failed to compete with internal combustion everywhere except in the highest output systems devoted to generation where the thermodynamics work in steam's favor, particularly where cooling water is cheaply available. Something mobile like an steam automobile must throttle the output down far below peak efficiency to keep the heat stress at a manageable level. This is why diesel power overtook steam turbines in commercial marine applications after WWII. There's hardly a commercial vessel afloat that isn't direct-drive or diesel-electric because even those applications do not require the high-outputs steam turbines can provide efficiently, despite the available cooling water that envelopes a ship at sea. (Naval applications are quite different, where speed or unrefueled range are vitally strategic considerations.) Steam works on land generating electricity from hydrocarbon fuels or nuclear fission, or at sea in a military context for extreme endurance or extreme stealth, but not in automobiles, nor locomotives, nor commercial shipping. When TEGs mature into high-output systems, steam will vanish from naval architecture as well.
NYT said: "A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil."
Quaestor replied..."The complication ignored by the NYT is question of generation."
Yeah, this is weak thinking on the part of the NYT author. You can use an ICE vehicle to haul gasoline to a rural distribution facility (a.k.a. gas station) for other ICE vehicles, essentially bootstraping the entire system. Rural access to electricity required a build out of the entire grid. That was always going to take decades.
The situation is similar today. An all EV fleet is going to essentially require rebuilding the entire grid.
Italics, begone.
Baker: Hansom without a Horse
Electric female-only cars, internal combusion muscle cars, bah humbug. Give a girl a horse to ride as a child and she'll understand more about men, and herself, than you can possibly imagine when an adult.
"gilbar said...
for the Pro EV folk here.. a Simple Question.
IF i live in an apartment, or otherwise Don't have parking..
HOW am i supposed to charge an EV?
please be honest"
I sell EV chargers and focus on multi-family apartments. We use a power sharing product, a single 240V 60A circuit can be used for four chargers. Apartment complexes are putting them in to attract and retain tenants. In CA, AZ, and FL demand is so great that owners can make money off charger use, or by providing dedicated spots.
The EV is the first personal car that I have bought that the little woman actually likes to ride in, but if you live in an apartment or other home with street parking only, it’s gonna be a PIA.
Back of the envelope, gilbar, with my experience with my car, assuming the chargers are well distributed and all working, I am looking at 12 hrs charging time and paying roughly the same as gas. EV works great for local driving and home charging, it’s better than gas in that case.
States all rely on the gas tax for road repairs etc, and they are all going to some sort of tax on EVs.
"don't you have to rotate your tires on an EV?" Yes, and because EV's are heavier (battery weight) they go through tires faster.
EV's are great, but have significant limitations--particularly for rural populations. And they are ultimately no more "carbon-neutral" than ICE's. And there are a bazillion gallons of oil available for relatively cheap use and exploitation. Which will get used.
Addressing gilbar’s question about how do you charge an EV if you live in an apartment…Well, sometimes you don’t. Maybe your apartment complex has installed EV chargers, but maybe not, or there aren’t enough. Or maybe your city has abolished the requirement for apartments to have sufficient parking spaces for all tenants, so you’re parking on the street.
The larger issue is that those pushing the wholesale electrification of automobiles need to get a life. I have a Tesla; I bought it when gas in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia was north of $6 per gallon. I like my Tesla a lot; it’s not a perfect car by any means but as far as performance goes, I can leave the vast majority of ICE cars in the dust at any speed range from zero to 100 mph, and the car handles quite well, especially after I ditched the OEM Michelins for Pirelli P-Zeros. And at $6 per gallon gas, by using cheap overnight power to charge, I was saving around 80% on “fuel” costs (somewhat less now because gas prices are down a bit, and electricity prices are also unfortunately up a bit). Oh, and I should mention that I got no subsidy - federal or state - on mine.
But no honest EV owner will tell you there are no trade offs. To gilbar’s point, if you can’t reliably charge overnight using cheapish electricity to an 80% state of charge (which, practically speaking , means having a house with a 240 volt charging system installed), living with an EV becomes significantly more difficult. If you need to drive more than, say, 250 miles in a day, you will need to plan your trip around available charging stations, which may be plentiful in coastal SoCal but maybe not in, say, rural Montana. And 15-30 minute stops every 2 hours is in fact a major detriment to trip time for the vast majority of people. Cold weather significantly degrades battery performance, so if you don’t live and/or drive in a temperate clime such as the aforementioned coastal SoCal, that 250 mile practical range is now more like 175 miles. And that EV shill saying that on average, people only drive 40 miles per day? How many things do you buy for the average case? “Sorry honey, but your doctor is a 50 mile round trip so it’s outside the range of our car and you’ll have to take a bus or taxi” isn’t going to fly in most households…
I think EVs make sense for a fair chunk of people, but (a) they shouldn’t be forced on people, (b) they shouldn’t be subsidized, and (c) people should go into an EV purchase with eyes wide open, not clouded over by fast talk from someone who secretly wants to eliminate all cars anyway.
"The electric car will take over ice car, it is inevitable." Tell me you don't live in the mountain or desert Western US without telling me ...
Oh, and one more thing about the EV performance: I’m a gearhead from way back; used to do all my own customization and maintenance on my cars. Manual transmission too, heel and toe, double-clutching, late apex, the works. Loved the sound of a small block V8 or a straight six winding up. With the Tesla (a Model 3 Long Range, not even the Performance model), yeah, I don’t get that sweet exhaust note, but the amount of sustained and instantaneous torque I have under my right foot is intoxicating, even if it’s mostly silent. And when you’re barreling down a twisty road, having regen braking available on the single pedal is a whole new exercise in fun.
"And that EV shill saying that on average, people only drive 40 miles per day? How many things do you buy for the average case?"
Yes, that argument is terrible. I need a car that can handle 100% of my trips, not 90%.
If I had a 3-car garage I'd probably have an EV. But I don't.
Our two cars are both manuals. I used to consider the "unstealable" claim dubious, but I have run into attendants who I hand the car over to who couldn't drive them, so maybe there's some truth to it.
"Daddy — Get Me a Baker"
I loved Leno's line: "But you're not quite clear if it's really her father...or a creepy congressman"
- Krumhorn
There isn't enough capacity of generation or transmission lines to support widespread adoption of electric cars. Period. In California it's all they can do to keep the lights on as it is.
After Hurricane Sandy in 2012 over 8 million people were without power. My brother's house in NJ is 5 miles inland yet had no power for at least two weeks. My home in NY flooded and was without power for over 30 days. My second floor tenants never left, basically camping out in home without power or heat for over a month. The gas came back first, allowing them heat with the use of a gas operated generator. People were able to leave the no power zone to obtain gas as well as food. If all the thousands of people camping out in their homes only had electric vehicles with no way to recharge over night- I cannot imagine how much worse things would have been.
"A hundred years ago, lawmakers also put their thumbs on the scale — and came down on the side of oil."
The complication ignored by the NYT is the question of generation. Even if the early electric cars had received the "thumbed scale" political benefit actual granted to the petroleum industry, the generation industry, which is nothing but the child of the fuel industry (petroleum and coal) wedded to other industries (mining for transmission lines, heavy engineering for turbines, heavy construction for steam plants and hydroelectric dams) would have needed even greater tax incentives to make Bakers and Milburns into something more mobile than chicken coops. Given the inefficiency of lead-acid batteries, favoring gasoline automobiles over electrics was by far the more rational path.
(re-posted with clarifications and fixed typos)
Sometimes a car is--just a car. It's hard to see Teslas as exuding or representing "toxic masculinity" Now give me a 66 Pointiac GTO with the TriCarb 389 and we might be talking about something. Or a good old Dodge Ram dually with a Cummins diesel up front.
Poor Marge. My EV waxes V8’s all the time and does it silently. Maybe she, a white trash goober, likes excessive carbon emissions from dudes named Cletus who have small genitals, but ppl who want a fast car, choose a more efficient and cheaper to maintain alternative to her silly Camaros
And one more thing. Did this lady ever hear of the Rural Electrification Administration? A good portion of the country (okay, hicks in the sticks) was without electrical power of any kind well into the 1930s. Same goes for the effect of the TVA in the South. If you don't have any electricity, it's not politics that killed the electric car in those areas.
Dear skeptical voter, every person alive knows anyone driving a Dodge Ram is an a$$ hole
This preference for ICE cars over electric cars had nothing to do with "gender stereotypes." ICE cars 100 years ago were very loud, dirty and very smelly. It was all about the cost and convenience, not gender.
Most American households did not have access to electricity in the 1910s. It wasn't until the 1920s that they started to get electricity installed in their homes. Electric vehicles were a toy for the rich back then. Whereas ICE cars provided a convienent and affordable form of personal transportation for the average person.
According to Wikipedia: "In the early 20th century, the high cost, low top speed, and short range of battery electric vehicles, compared to internal combustion engine vehicles, led to a worldwide decline in their use as private motor vehicles."
It's only been because of recent technology that these problems have been minimized, but not totally solved. Many people still have problems finding places to charge their electric cars. Plus, there's still the fact that it can take hours to charge an electric car but only a few minutes to fill a tank with gasoline. (And fast chargers require a tremendous amount of current, so they can't be installed in residential areas.)
"Now, make my Honda Odyssey (The Pinnacle of Automotive Achievement)"
Bro. Your man card is in serious jeopardy.
ROCEAN hit on it. In 1910 half the country had no electricity. That Included large parts of our major cities. Electricity as a utility was new. There is nothing wrong with a Tesla. Good looks lots of power, but the 45 minute charge time is a deal breaker.
I think I mentioned before that if someone could build an electric F 150 with the same range and capacity that charges in 15 minutes they'll have a world beater.
This article demonstrates what is wrong with the New York Times.
They're constantly putting out garbage reporting like this. It happens so consistantly, where the facts and conclusions are totally wrong, that it's obvious that they're pushing an agenda instead of trying to deliver factual and correct articles.
Now we’re talking… a true “driver’s car” I’ve got my eye on…
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2019-alfa-romeo-giulia-quadrifoglio-14/Xi
Ex-PFC Wintergreen said...
Why would you need a 15-30 minute stop every 2 hours to go 120 miles??? The new model y is 356miles range. Even at 80% capacity that is 284 miles. At 70? Mph that is 4 hours. Just curious.
"Plus, there's still the fact that..."
if everybody had an EV, the capacity to charge them all does not currently exist.
Why would you need a 15-30 minute stop every 2 hours to go 120 miles
The first minutes of a charging stop the batteries fill very quickly, then the charging speed tapers and the batteries fill more slowly. So a cross country strategy is to charge only during the fastest speeds, usually 15-20 minutes, until the charge speed begins to taper off then drive on to the next stop…
"if everybody had an EV, the capacity to charge them all does not currently exist."
Yes, not even close. And if we go all windmill and unicorn farts, AND build AI too, there never will be.
I'm willing to give up my spot at the EV charging trough so that others may juice up from the limited supply.
Magnanimous, I know, but that's just the kind of guy I am.
"Scholars who have studied the earlier age of electric vehicles see parallels in their demise in the early decades of the 1900s and the attacks they are facing now."
"Experts say"? Well, I'm convinced.
“ And she knows who provides the wherewithal. One wonders if that mustachioed plutocrat is father or otherwise daddy?”
Like in that old song “Daddy, I Want a Brand New Car.”
https://youtu.be/tpXgPIdzWao?si=H8TZuwqfKMxnTFd0
I have nothing against electric cars but I am opposed to to government subsidies for purchasing them. I can see buying an electric in the future but the tech has to make some big improvements first. I just got back from a 10 day, 2500+ mile road trip and if I had to find chargers and then wait for the time it took to charge the batteries, it would have been an 11 day road trip or longer.
Julie London... Ooo, yeah.
States all rely on the gas tax for road repairs etc, and they are all going to some sort of tax on EVs.
They're going to track your mileage and tax you according to that. Washington state is already going down that road. (pun not intended)
"The electric car will take over ice car, it is inevitable."
************************
It won't be inevitable until EVS cannot burst into unquenchable flames and---as they do now---burn a dozen ICE vehicles parked near them .
That niggling detail will not be solved using current battery technologies.
As a result EVs are being banned from parking garages, and insurers will not cover damage to homes with EVs parked in attached garages.
IOW EVs are about as inevitable as fusion power---always just down the road.
Dream on.
"That niggling detail will not be solved using current battery technologies."
I think it already has been, to some extent. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are a lot more stable than the lithium cobalt flavor, and are in a significant number, though not the majority, of EVs. They aren't as popular because they have a lower specific energy. So the trade-off is range vs having your house burn down.
"They're going to track your mileage and tax you according to that."
I believe Trump's Big Beautiful Bill has an EV tax in it. It's a flat tax, so no mileage tracking.
when some smaat kid invents a hybrid capacitor-battery that can be charged in minutes and discharged over many hours
Physics says that will never happen.
Of course, why bother with a messy tax when you can just ban driving.
It's a flat tax, so no mileage tracking.
Trust me. Washington state is going to do mileage tracking no matter what's in the BBB.
I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk (very interesting; I recommend it) and note that electric cars made Musk the richest man in the world. I don't know if that fact means you should or should not buy an electric car. Me, I'm sticking with my gas -powered 2016 Buick (new Buicks are now all electric).
"Trust me. Washington state is going to do mileage tracking no matter what's in the BBB."
Well, democrats.
"Trust me. Washington state is going to do mileage tracking no matter what's in the BBB."
And further deplete its tax base in the process.
"Well, democrats"
Killing golden geese at an ever-increaing rate.
There is no systemic ban on evs in parking garages or insurers refusing to cover homes with ev chargers.
"There is no systemic ban on evs in parking garages or insurers refusing to cover homes with ev chargers."
Has anyone made such a claim?
"There is no systemic ban on evs in parking garages or insurers refusing to cover homes with ev chargers."
Systemic, the No. 1 with a bullet most abused word in English.
"Systemic, the No. 1 with a bullet most abused word in English."
Right up there with widespread electoral fraud.
re: parking garages and EVs; apparently parking garages have been engineered for the average weight of ICE cars (no surprise there) and the much higher weight of EVs essentially means they all have to be torn down and rebuilt if we are to have an all EV fleet).
"Systemic, the No. 1 with a bullet most abused word in English."
"Literally" would like to have a word. I mean, literally.
"There is no systemic ban on evs in parking garages or insurers refusing to cover homes with ev chargers."
The garage I park at for work in Boston had a ban on certain models of EV's due to concerns with their battery safety.
My favorite EV fire story was some wag's comment on an EV manufacturers warning not to park their car near "something they valued".
"You mean like my house?"
“Why would you need a 15-30 minute stop every 2 hours to go 120 miles???”
My M3 has a predicted range of 315 miles at 100% charge. At typical moderate traffic speeds, like the ones you you would encounter on the interstate from, say, LA to Flagstaff (a little over 450 miles), you should expect to be driving 75 mph, maybe as much as 80-85 mph in some parts. At those speeds, you’ll be doing good to get 80% of that range, which works out to 250 miles. (Note that EV efficiency at highway speeds is dominated by aerodynamic drag; the power required to overcome drag goes up as the cube of the speed. ICE car efficiency doesn’t start becoming as drag-dominated as an EV until significantly faster.) So, best case, you’re looking at one recharge stop, but time-wise, that’s not the optimum: that one stop will consume close to an hour, because you’ll need to charge back to 100%. If you only charge to, say, 70% at that first stop, you can be back on the road in about 30 minutes. Your next stop can be maybe 15 minutes to get you to Flagstaff with enough juice to drive around a bit before you have to find a Supercharger or plug into you hotel’s Level 2 charger for some hours.
But you’re still down 45 minutes of charging for that 6 to maybe 7 hours of behind-the-wheel time. For a reasonably efficient ICE car with a decent-sized tank, you can do that trip with one 5-minute gas stop. Some people would never drive that trip without a 45-60 minute stop for eat/drink/bodily functions, so maybe it’s a wash for them, assuming they can mesh up the charge and the eat etc. stop; for me, I usually want to put off the eating until I’m there, so in this hypothetical, I’d hit the head at the gas station and just keep pressing.
This is an example of how things can differ between doing a long trip in an EV vs an ICE car. Not claiming one is better that the other, just that there are differences and a prospective EV buyer should educate himself/herself about them. Real-world range is a big one.
"Not claiming one is better that the other,…"
I am. I can go where I want without having to resort to a spreadsheet.
"Sometimes a car is--just a car."
And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, eh, Skeptical Voter?
I talked to a single mother with 2 pre-school kids who had ended up living in an apartment and putting 50,000 miles a year on her Model Y Long Range. 100% Supercharging. A great car, but it is so painful thinking of all the time she is spending waiting for her vehicle to charge.
I, on the hand, have a garage with a Level 2 charger and my Model 3 Standard Range always has plenty of charge, and the only time I spend on it is unrolling the cable every couple days and spooling it up the next morning. For me, my vehicle is the most convenient car, for her, it’s painfully impractical. And the house she’s moving into only has 100 Amp service, so it’s going to take some seriously expensive electrical upgrades to get her to where I’m at.
There are current state issues with EVs, currently. That is simply because infrastructure is not present. This doesn’t mean it will not be present in the future.
But also, EVs don’t have to completely replace ICEs, especially in the short term.
Charging will forever be an issue, but we (or the next generation) will be used to it. Remember when you didn’t need to charge your phone for a week or so? (Pepperidge Farm remembers) Now it’s a daily occurrence. Charging locations are everywhere. This demonstrates the adaptability to changes in technology.
“Everybody knows that the Tesla is the ultimate muscle car. It's completely understandable by women like Marjorie Taylor green enjoy the loping rumble of an American V8 engine that vibrates up into there bucket seat.”
My favorite is the electric Mercedes G Wagon. When they say 4 wheel drive, they mean an electric motor for each wheel. Run them at slightly different speeds, and you can have better turning. But what’s really neat is when they run in opposite directions, esp on dirt or gravel. Then the vehicles spin in place.
Step son has a wife who is into leftist virtue signaling. He earns enough that he can indulge her. They showed up in a Tesla around Christmas a year and a half ago. The boys loved the programming. Their Tesla played Christmas carols for us, accompanied by a light show. They came to NE Phoenix from Vail, just east of Tucson, and had to recharge for 45 minutes on the way back. We did that trip last week, round trip, in our heavy Mercedes ICE SUV, in just over a half tank of gas.
Recently, with the unpopularity of Musk with that segment of the population, they bought a Rivian SUV. Most are over $100k.
Two years ago, our mostly Gen X Yuppie block in NE PHX, was about 50% EVs and hybrids. Four houses in a row, including ours, had 4 Teslae, and we didn’t have one. Had mostly German ICEs (2xAudis, 1xMercedes) instead. Now, with Musk’s unpopularity, most of them over half of them are gone now, replaced by German ICEs (Audi, BMW, Mercedes, and a lone VW, in that order). Most common vehicle now on the block is the Audi Q5 (and SQ5).
Kate said...
“I drive a muscle car, and when I notice other drivers, I'm not the only woman to do so.”
3+ decades ago, there was an older woman who would pull into the parking lot driving a brand new special edition Firebird with the twin turbo V6 out of the Buick GNX. Not many people knew about that particular model. But she was an object of envy who knew what she was driving.
“Of course, we're all of a certain age. I haven't seen young women lining up for the roar.”
I think part of it is generational. We grew up when those cars were the stuff of teen-age dreams. Millennials and younger when they get older will probably drive Civic Type Rs or Golf Rs.
I should add to my previous comment that I am talking about a particular subset of drivers.
They like to talk about Tesla sales sliding, but they never include what's happening to other electric vehicle sales from traditional gas car companies. They have been falling off the cliff. With Congress and the President ending the special EPA exception that allowed California (and several other states) to eventually eliminate the sale of gas cars, that fall will probably be steeper, as gas car companies shed their electric albatrosses.
Personally, if my wife could still drive, I would get her a used Tesla, maybe one of the Hertz models. She never drove very far anyway. I'd be responsible for keeping it charged, just like I was responsible for keeping gas in her car.
I saw the Leno video with the story above this about billionaires, so let me replay some of that comment. Jay talked about how the Baker was his wife's favorite for seeing the Christmas lights and going to dinner. That backed up a suspicion I had about Jay's purchase of the top-of-the-line electric Rolls-Royce. When it comes to new vehicles, Jay is performance oriented, where the e-RR is all about quiet and comfort. I believe he bought it to cocoon his wife, who is going the stages of dementia, in quiet and comfort as they go to shop, to dinner, and to her doctor's appointments.
A new Model Y will be able to drive itself unsupervised in a few weeks, supposedly.
Last week Williams Shatner was asking on X about buying a Tesla and it made me think that for those who have the means, an unsupervised FSD capable one will allow mobility to be extended to the aged and handicapped.
I would want the newer model with a front bumper camera and hardware 4.
One thing to know about the future of battery cars vs gas cars is that the worldwide volume of new gas cars peaked in 2017.
The manufacturing volume is down about 20% from then.
Battery cars have more than made up for the difference.
I see the comment "the EV bubble is bursting" sometimes. The manufacturing volumes don't support that.
Another trend is that the multiple Chinese manufacturers are building good cars and getting acceptance in many countries. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were the names in my youth. Watch for BYD, Geely, and Proton in the future.
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