Ever Get the "Itch" to Buy an Electric Car?

Then do yourself a favor; don't "scratch" it.

Have you ever wondered why an inordinate number of TV commercials these days are for electric cars?  Not hybrids, the plug-in, all-electric variety.  Well, so did I, The Chuckmeister.  Especially since less than 2% of all our fleet of more than 210,000,000 automobiles are electric, and less than 2.1% of all new car sales are for electric vehicles, one would just have to wonder why?  Is there some "special" reason why our auto makers are so upbeat on electrics?  Why they are dedicating the majority of their R&D resources to electric?  

A resounding "Yes," fellow Patriots, there is!  And here are but a few...

To start with, new electric cars contain only about 20% of the parts of automobiles with conventional, internal combustion engines.  No carburetor, no pistons, no crankshaft, no radiator, no transmission, no nothing.  Almost no moving parts, in fact.  Just a reeeely big battery, a tightly-wound electric motor, and a constant-velocity, single-speed transmission to get you on down the road.  Sooooo, the manufacturers don't have to buy - or pay union rates to install - those other parts and pieces.  Those thousands of separate and distinct parts and pieces.  They just collect a few thousand AAA-style batteries and lash them together into a reeeely big battery pack, usually weighing 1,000 pounds or more, and attach them to a tightly-wound electric motor and a constant-velocity transmission.  

So, to sum up:  80% fewer parts to buy and pay some union thug to assemble at inflated hourly rates.  Anybody for some coffee and a danish?

Oh yeah, it gets better.  Mucho better.  These self-same manufacturers then tout the difficulty and research associated with putting out these magnificent brutes, by increasing their price!    

We're talking a brand-new, all-electric, super-shiny Mercedes-Benz "ELS," going out the door right now, today, just introduced to the yawning public, for "only" $119,989.  Right now.  Today.

And the "regular" M-B model?  The one with a crankshaft and pistons?  The one with all the moving parts?  $47,894.00 less.  

And once you've bought your overpriced, inflated golf cart, you can then concern yourself with where do you go to charge it?  Most electric car buyers install about $2,500 worth of 220 v. stuff in their garage so they can charge their cars in six hours or so.  If they don't, plan on 12 hours or more.  Usually an overnight charge works just fine.  

But God help you if you want to charge less or drive more than your car's "range."  And you won't really know what that range is until you reach it.  That's called "range anxiety," BTW.  And you know if it's been given a name, then it's a problem for most folks.  

Oh, the manufacturer will guess your car's range for you, but you'll have to find out in the Real World, where you live.  And the temperature outside can help determine that range.  When it gets cold outside electric cars can lose as much as 20% of their efficiency and range.  You didn't know that, did you?  They don't tell you that, do they?

And where do you charge when you're out and about?  You'll have to figure that out for yourself, Grasshopper.  And sometimes the chargers you need to keep on going on will be busy.  Or the opposite.  I was in Sedona recently and saw a bank of 20 or so Tesla charging units, with one lonely Tesla needing a boost.  That means somebody waaaay overguessed as to charger need (Musk?), or the public is buying far fewer Teslas than was projected...  

And then it can get comical.  I've seen, actually SEEN, a portable gasoline battery charger charging a Tesla alongside the freeway.  I chuckled.  Mightily.  Dwell on that mental picture for awhile...

And Teslas, our most popular and most expensive electrics, are at the bottom of Consumer Report's Reliability Index, due to their poor build quality.  Hmmm.  $100,000 for a slapped-together piece of crap?  Don't think so!  

Oh yeah, and electric cars depreciate faster than regular old cars like the 200,000,000 or so of them we're driving right now.  Do they tell you than only 2.1% of all new cars sold these days are plug-in electric?  No?  Would it help you to decide if you knew?

And then there's the little factoid that electric cars make no noise.  No "vroom!" "vroom!"  No nice, warm, utterly lovely analog mechanical sound that we performance car lovers just love to love.  There's simply nothing quite like the idle of a warmed-over small block Chevy motor heard through a nice set of mandrel-bent headers.  Or the wail of a Porsche as it nears the top of the tach.  Or that "ripping canvas" sound of a Ferrari.  You don't get that with an electric.  They make the sound your dining room rheostat makes when you turn up the lights...

(Crickets)  

And for those who are really in it to save money, a new Toyota Yaris will return 47 mpg for $15,600, out the door.  So there.  I just removed that objection...

And lastly, don't get into a big crack-up with an electric car.  These beasts ride on 1,000 pounds or more of electric batteries.  Half a ton.  That's why they corner so well.  Low center of gravity and all.  But don't ask the local paramedics to use their Jaws of Life to pry you out when you're in a blazing fire.  One of the many that have started all by themselves in Teslas, BTW.  Because they just might get electrocuted.  

Paramedics are funny like that...

Of course, if you buy an all-electric you'll be saving the planet.  There's that to consider (cough, cough).  Especially since we rely on natural gas for nearly 41% and coal for more than 20% of our electric power grid.  

And did CNN and MSNBC tell you that China plans to open some 3,500 new coal-fired electric plants in the next 10 years?  No?  Yeah, they just announced that, while we were patting ourselves on the back for closing our own.  And considering that China and India are together responsible for more than 51% of the planet's total carbon emissions, and we're way down there at 25%, one wonders exactly why we're punishing ourselves when we're not the problem. 

And see all those windmills clotting up the scenery?  Yeah, less than 3% of our electric power.  In the summer.  And the wind doesn't blow so good in the winter.  Funny, huh?  And not in a good way?

So do with all of this what you will.  We went away from electric cars and on to gasoline more than 100 years ago because fossil fuels are so energy efficient.  Perhaps that's why 98% of us see no reason to go back...