In the history of motoring, no owner of a sports car has ever said, “This car would be perfect if it sounded like a washing machine instead of a sports car.” In fact, a common complaint from sports car enthusiasts over the decades is that their favorite model does not have a sexy enough exhaust note. A big part of owning a sports car, even a budget model, is the sound it makes when driving. Watch a car show or YouTube car channel and exhaust sound is always mentioned.
Even if you are not into sports cars, the sound of the engine revving is something everyone associates with a sports car. The sound of the car shifting gears, the echo of the exhaust in a narrow canyon, is a big part of the experience. Similarly, driving enthusiasts prefer manual gearboxes to automatics, even though they will tell you that computer controlled automatic transmissions are far superior. The manual gearbox allows the driver to feel like he is part of the machine.
With that in mind, the world’s premiere sports car makers are promising to take all of that away in the coming years. They say they will stop building internal combustion engines and go completely electric. Most have already abandoned manual gearboxes and the rest promise to do so shortly. The supercar makers are investing all of their time in electric motors and self-driving technology. Their goal is to make the elite sports car into something close to an autonomous vehicle
That means the sports car driving experience will soon be like sitting in front of your laptop to the sound of kitchen appliances. Car shows will have soft looking men and women climbing into futuristic vehicles then sitting there in silence as the vehicle goes about the business of being a car. Presumably, the sports models will come with a VR system so the driver can pretend to be driving an actual sports car or maybe it will just have a screen to see what it used to be like.
The question is why? Again, no one can find a Ferrari owner saying he wishes his supercar sounded more like the kitchen juicer. No one has ever daydreamed about driving his blender through the countryside. People into motoring do it for how it makes them feel and it makes them feel alive. It reminds them that life is for living, not ticking boxes on a spreadsheet dreamed up by a sadist with a graduate degree. That’s the thrill of driving a fast car to your limit.
Granted, there is a group of people who claim to be sports car enthusiasts who think electric sports cars are a great idea. They like telling people that electric cars have a flat torque curve, meaning they can accelerate faster than a normal car. BMW has made a lot of money selling them Z-series sports cars, the ones that look like a clown’s shoe, because these are people who are dead inside. Their enthusiasm for sports cars is superficial and performative.
Of course, there is the environmental angle. The Gaia worshippers claim that electric cars are better for Mother Earth. These are the people who tote their groceries home from the market in grimy canvas sacks. These are the people who wear ornamental face gear thinking it wards off evil spirits. The people who have made a childish fear of the bogeyman into both a science and a religion love electric cars. They also think everyone should live in pods and ride the bus.
Putting aside their superstitions, electric cars are not eco-friendly or a more efficient use of natural resources. Electric comes from power stations. The most common powerplant fuels are coal, natural gas, and uranium. In the United States, only 20% of electricity comes from so-called renewables like solar. These “good” sources of electric like solar are a blight on nature and environmentally toxic. The long term costs far outweigh the costs of conventional energy production systems.
Then there is the practicality of electric cars. Fueling a normal car takes a few minutes while charging an EV takes hours. Again, no one is sitting around saying, “I’d like to spend hours at a roadside station talking with people who tend to loiter at rest stops while my electric car is being charged.” Then there is the fact that you have to install a charging station in your home. Imagine buying a car and being told you have to install a filling station in your backyard in order to use it.
In other words, the natural demand for electric cars was zero and remains low even with the push to manufacture demand. There is a novelty factor, for sure, but if no one had bothered to push the production of electric cars, they would not exist. Tesla exists as a way for Elon Musk to hoover up billions in government money, not because he found an unexploited niche in the automobile market. What he found was a clever way to become a rent seeker and the P.T. Barnum of the technological age.
It would be easy to go through all of the arguments in favor of electric cars and show them to be ridiculous or plain wrong. That is not the point. The point is despite the obvious, Western elites are hell bent on forcing us into electric cars. Those super car makers are not marketing to the hoi polloi. They cater to the global elite and they think the global elite believes in the miracle of electric cars. They are catering to their audience and their audience is our ruling class.
The point of this exercise is not to argue against electric cars, but to point out that practicality and self-interest are not what motivates the ruling class. All of them mouth the platitudes of Gaia worship because that is the prevailing orthodoxy. It is a way for them to signal their adherence to the faith. The local officials installing charging stations at the local school, yet ignoring the broken pipes and boarded up windows, are not thinking practically or responding to the demands of the people.
The electric car grift is useful in thinking about how partisanship in a liberal democracy becomes ideology then something closer to theology. The old partisan divide of the last century, good whites versus bad whites, has become a basket of beliefs untethered from practical reality. That basket of beliefs now forms a religion that bounds and defines the ruling class. The managerial class now has its own religion to control and define the members.
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The electric car is exactly what the new generation wants because as they have learned with smart devices, there’s nothing for them to fix and you just throw it away when it needs to be replaced. In fact, most of the new electric cars have no “user serviceable parts”. Even the Mercedes EQS warns the user that the hood cannot be opened and should only be serviced by a qualified technician.
It’s a safe to say that most people born in this century have no clue how to work on a car in the first place. I suspect most of us born in the last century could actually remove and rebuild our own engines with out too much trouble.
My son doesn’t own a car and lives in a major city. Nor does he have a clue about how one works. But he knows how to install and set up an App on his smartphone and navigate Netfilx on his smart TV. Handy skills no doubt.
I find it incredible that we have a generation that doesn’t think twice about spending hundreds of Euros to replace a smartphone every few years. Of course none of them are protesting against the manufacturers when it comes to all the electronic waste being dumped in third world countries that ends up poisoning those people as they attempt to recover metals from these devices.
And we all know none of the auto makers have any viable plans to recover the hundreds of thousands of used batteries they will produce. We’ve seen this already where used wind turbine blades end up in land fills.
Is there truly no competing elites on this planet with a better grasp of reality and the ruthlessness and will to power to destroy these pathetic spoiled children in control of what we used to call The West? Is that really true? I wish I had the cynical opportunism gene to the level of a Bezos or a Musk. I would not use that wealth to take space rides I can tell you. I would use it destroy the worm-people currently at the helm. The public would welcome seeing their heads roll down the capitol steps. They can’t hide their Olympian level of degenerate incompetence because they are too stupid to even recognize it in themselves. It must just come down to the nukes. The rest of the world looks on frozen and horrified as they are trapped in the room with the giant retard state as it bangs a hammer on a box of nitro and drools. There must be a french or german word for the perfect synchronicity and cosmically harmonic act of installing dementia joe as the figurehead executive of the retard state.
I am probably more open-minded about electric cars than most car enthusiasts (read the letters column from the November issue of Car & Driver to get a sense of the mood among car buffs). I’ve driven a couple of electric “performance cars,” and they are pretty nifty in a Jetsons kind of way. It was not at all an unpleasant experience.
But yeah, at the end of the day, I’d rather drive a snarling piece of iron powered by Dino juice, with an honest-to-God manual transmission. No electric car can match that feeling of visceral engagement; I intend to drive one for as long as I possibly can.
The thing to remember is that none of these car companies are building these cars because they want to, or because their customers are demanding them. I mean, maybe the executives want it, but none of the guys who actually design and build the cars want this, and nobody who actually sells cars for a living wants this. All of this is coming about because of draconian government mandates. The car companies are pretending to be enthusiastic about it not because they like it, but because they are terrified of ending up like the tobacco companies. They are begging the eco-fascists to feed them to the lions last.
I’ve been banging a drum about this for years, howling in the wilderness about how our rulers are dead serious about killing internal combustion. But in the next few years, people are finally going to come face to face with this, because to meet the current regulatory timetables, every company that makes gas engines is going to have to start ramping up the transition to electric motors — starting NOW. If you go to buy a new car in the next few years, expect a hard sell on switching to electric — and the sell will only get harder with time. And it’s not just cars, by the way. Have you shopped for lawn equipment lately? I have. A lot of places are giving prominent placement to electric equipment while deliberately making it hard to shop for the gas-powered stuff, even though it’s still for sale. Why? They are hoping to nudge everybody into switching to electric yard tools to avoid the huge backlash when they’re finally forced to announce, “sorry, no more gas equipment.”
The fact that there’s no infrastructure in place to handle this huge shift in power consumption, to say nothing of widespread consumer hostility, simply doesn’t matter to our rulers. This is going to be one of the biggest debacles ever and might even upend the whole political order, both in the US and elsewhere. It will certainly redpill a lot of normies when they come to realize that no matter what they do, the fanatics will never, ever, ever leave them alone to just grill in peace — hell, the fanatics want to take your grill, too.
It’s all fun and games with regard to renewable energy and electric cars until reality intrudes with inclement weather. Last winter’s ice storm that crippled Texas by attacking the points of failure in their electric grid that were supplied by renewables was one wake up call. The snowstorms that shut down I-95 in Virginia last week and the one we got today in KY that shut down parts of I-75 and I-64 are two more.
Bad weather happens and ultimately if it’s bad enough, the roads are going to become impassable no matter how competent or well thought out the plan was to deal with it. Off- ramps turn to ice. Tractor- trailers get stuck and block them. Next thing you know, the Interstate is a parking lot and there’s not much anyone can do but wait for the weather to at least ease up a bit so that the roads can be cleared. That means, yes, people get stuck for hours and, inevitably, some number of them will run out of gas.
When the road is cleared and it’s time to get traffic moving again, those cars with empty tanks are a problem, but it’s not an insurmountable one. You just need to splash a gallon or two in the tank to get them to the next exit and they’re fine, “fine” being defined as “able to get out of the way so we can reopen the @!#% road.”
That doesn’t work with an electric car that takes an hour or more to get enough charge to cover the same distance as a gas- powered car can on just one gallon of gas. There’s also no practical way to bring portable generator power to each stalled electric car the way a single AAA service truck can dole out a gallon of gas to multiple stalled gas- powered cars in a very short amount of time. Imagine a world where electrics make up 25% of the national fleet. Now imagine that 1 in 4 of the stalled cars on I-95 at the end of last week’s storm either needed an hour apiece to get enough juice to get far enough down the road from a portable electric car charging device that doesn’t yet exist (as far as I know) or had to be towed out of the way before traffic could move efficiently again.
City people who can only imagine the whole world as one giant City.
How provincial.
These are the types that fly from San Fran to NYC and think the world must be everywhere overcrowded.
They’re trying to ‘solve’ the only environment they know.
Of course, with immigration, perhaps they’re only salmon recreating their spawning grounds.
Moral positions on technology are marked by extremism, where there are some technologies that must be totally retired. My view is that hybrids are often very good solutions, but hybrids don’t satisfy the criteria of being ‘utopian’.
About the hours long recharging problem, the obvious solution is that gas stations become ‘battery stations’ instead of just power outlets. You just change batteries like you do in your computer mouse or flashlight or whatever. If they are too big to handle manually, you make smaller module batteries or a robot changes them or something.
Israeli company tried this and failed. Burned through $850 million in the attempt. Oy vey!
https://jalopnik.com/battery-swapping-israeli-startup-better-place-is-dead-510139169
“With that in mind, the world’s premiere sports car makers are promising to take all of that away in the coming years. They say they will stop building internal combustion engines and go completely electric. Most have already abandoned manual gearboxes and the rest promise to do so shortly.”
And the worst part is, the young generation is going to be fine with it. They want a car that integrates with whatever they come up with to replace the iPad. In fact I would not be surprised if one of the tech companies fuses with an automaker at some point, with the tech company in charge. And if you miss the sounds of an old car, no problem, you can get an app for that, that makes real sounds. And not just car sounds either, why not sound like a Saturn V when you fire up?
To the next generation of boys, electronics have almost entirely replaced mechanics. When was the last time you saw a 12 yr old boy make a sword in a workshop or even a slingshot? They get a new patch that supplies a sword or slingshot, or RPG, to their tablet shooting game instead. Electronics are replacing mechanics, digital is replacing analog and virtual is replacing real reality.
And it’s not just cars. Guns are even more behind the curve than cars. It is apparently insufficient that the only electronics on a gun are red dot sights. Everything else about your home defense firearm or hunting implement is solid 19th century technology (excepting I suppose, that a few things may be made from plastic). But the Russians are working hard to fix that. Now your shotgun needs to talk to your phone. Why this was necessary is a complete mystery.
https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/332677-kalashnikov-creates-first-shotgun-for-iphone
The proof that EVs are just the religion of the elite is that the technology to move people around with electricity existed 100 years ago. Subways and light rail get right around the battery problem, but people don’t use them if they can help it because of the “urban” demographic. Even 20 years ago in pre-woke 90% white Portland my parents had the bright idea to use the train to get to the airport without paying for long term parking, and from the look of things there must have been an all-you-can-eat fried chicken and grape juice restaurant at the end of the line.
If you really wanted normal middle-class people to use mass transit, you need to implement stop and frisk policing on the trains, along with blaring loud classical music nonstop to drive out the rubbish.
I enjoy classical music and don’t like to think of it as a weapon. But if it makes the undesirables peel off … Bravo!
They want electric, so they can shut it down from jewHQ if you get out of line and act human. Dead car, frozen bank account, no food without a microchip, welcome to nogahide america.
Besides electric cars being coal powered cars, they are also the driver (pun intended) of human sacrifices to Mother Gaia. The African kids, who do the cobalt mining lose their childhoods and have a lower life expectancy. St. Floyd is looking down on that and he isn’t happy.
Anyone remember the AMC Javelin?
A thing of beauty, that. If I had the cash to superfluously piss away on a dream muscle car that I have no business driving thanks my lack of mechanical skills it be the AMC Javelin, probably a ’72.
Speaking of which, aren’t all the small American automakers, Studebaker, AMC, Willys etc, gone now? There are only the big three, two of which are only here b/c of government bailouts, and Tesla. This ‘consolidation’ coincides with cars being mindboggling boring to look at. In 500 years, when they’re flying around in high tech saucers, or just teleporting or whatever they’re going, and cars are as old school to them as horses and oxen are to us, art historians of the day will say that the golden age of car design was the 1950s USA (an ancient empire that blossomed up and then went collectively crazy in a way they are still trying to understand).
“Speaking of which, aren’t all the small American automakers, Studebaker, AMC, Willys etc, gone now? There are only the big three, two of which are only here b/c of government bailouts, and Tesla.”
The problem that the “Independents” (Those carmakers not GM, Ford, or the 1/2 of the Big 2 1/2, Chrysler) had was they had nowhere near the volume of sales nor economies of scale that that “Big Three” had. Perhaps IF Packard had listened to George Mason and James Nance hadn’t insisted on being President of what became AMC, they’d have grown a bit bigger than they got to. Instead Nance merged Packard and Studebaker together in a business deal that can only be described as a drunken man and woman getting married at a 24 hour wedding chapel and waking up the next morning and finally getting a clear eyed look at their marriage partner. 😳
Packard disappeared in 1958. Studebaker followed in 1966.
AMC bounced along by focusing on areas GM, Ford, and Chrysler were ignoring: Compact cars and simple, no-frills transportation. By keeping a close eye on sales and costs they did well. Two things doomed them:
1) GM, Ford, and Chrysler started offering compact cars by 1960.
2) AMC decided to go “toe-to-toe” in each segment GM, Ford, and Chrysler were in.
They could put up the good fight for a while, but the Japanese coming into the market in the 1970s cut the floor out from AMC. They entered “The Death Spiral” of not having enough cash to develop new platforms which meant they spent minimal money on updating existing platforms which failed to raise money for new platforms wash, rinse, repeat. Studebaker and Packard died the same way.
And now you know WAAAAAAAAYYYYY more than you ever wanted about the fall of “The Independents”. 😏
As for every car looking the same it’s less consolidation and more FedGov and other governments imposing fuel economy, emissions, and safety standard on all automakers. There’s only so many ways to slip a car through the air and keep the driver and passengers safe. Note many cars from different national manufacturers (Japan, South Korea, US, EU) look very similar except for grills, headlights, and taillights.
John Brown’s ghost roams the land
“The question is why?”
Because men let cunt run everything, and cunts gotta cunt.
The simple fact of the matter is that lefties have always hated the automobile because of what it represents: individual freedom.
it’s all about energy density.
more than one person here has commented about “peak oil”. so? do you know how many pounds of oil, it takes to equal the energy in a pound of uranium? 2M. that’s right, it takes 2 million pounds of oil, to equal the energy in one pound of uranium. what’s trippy is burning the oil releases more radioactivity into the atmosphere, than a nuke reactor would (which is 0).
fun fact: radioactivity will not go around corners, or reflect off surfaces.
fun fact: exposing yourself to low level radiation, repeatedly, is actually healthy.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050128222047.htm
“more than one person here has commented about “peak oil” ”
A meaningless term anyway. Nobody knows. the stats concerning “proven oil reserves” are hardly the objective figures from disinterested parties. It’s all lies. We just don’t know where we stand.
It is true, of course, that the amount of oil on Earth is finite (insofar as people now living can’t wait for more to be formed), but we don’t know how much that is or what it means.
And nuclear power plants rely absolutely on an uninterrupted supply of petroleum products. So do hydroelectric dams.
It is not *necessarily* stupid to consider what running out of crude might mean, should it happen, but it is monumentally stupid to stop using the stuff because we might run out of it some day. But a lot of public policies are monumentally stupid.
Alternative sources of energy *do* need to be developed, but they have to be reliable.
Wishing is not a sound foundation for energy policy.
Once again, Rush (the band, not Limbaugh) was prophetic.
Listen to ‘Red Barchetta’. Feel the engine roar, and the wind in your hair.
That album was such an achievement. They were able to transmute all of the awkward braininess of their early albums into a set of accessible and thrilling classics of art rock.
Although I do understand all of the ladies who can’t get past Geddy’s voice. He was the voice of the incels before being an incel was cool. His voice literally made women run away screaming.
I know the feeling, Geddy…
saw them a few years back, when they were playing “Moving Pictures” in its entirety.
, every soul in America works for the oil industry because it’s all interconnected.”
No, that’s your logic. But everybody in America *does* works *because* of the oil industry or, more precisely, because of the (heretofore) reliability of the power supply, from whatever source.
“(The US exported 1.5 billion cubic feet of LNG to Europe every day from 2017-2019 – before the gas squeeze in 2021.)”
Thanks for that info. I stand corrected. I hadn’t looked into that specifically in quite some time and *assumed* that the necessary infrastructure was still not ready. So thanks for setting me straight. My mistake.
As for Rense.com, comment would be superfluous.
Thanks again for engaging with me on this topic of overriding importance. We *must* get a clear picture of where we are.
Yes, there *is* a lot of ruin in a country, but that ruin is now being accelerated and even generated deliberately by those whose task, it is–or was–to hold things together. So we are in uncharted waters.
So we are in uncharted waters.
In principle, we always are.
Granted, our rulers do their utmost to destroy our civilization, from mass immigration, promotion of feminism, destruction of the energy infrastructure, neuroses-inducing health tyranny, media worshipping of joggers etc.
But the demise of the West has been prophesized for at least 100 years and we’re richer than ever, materially at least. And now we have the internet. I am utterly convinced it’s a bigger game-changer than the printing press and that our rulers are playing by obsolete rules.
The printing press brought us the Reformation, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the democratic revolution and the Communist revolution. So while we may indeed be in very uncharted waters, there’s no saying which way it’ll go.
“And now we have the internet. I am utterly convinced it’s a bigger game-changer than the printing press and that our rulers are playing by obsolete rules.”
AGREED!
About South Africa and so on … I think where we are talking past each other is that you are looking at the present, and projecting present conditions into the future *unchanged.* And I grant that that is a gross oversimplification, but this is a comment thread on a blog post.
Things are still functioning *somewhat* normally. There are problems with the supply chain, but the supply chain continues to “muddle through.”
And the perspective from which I have been writing is that the *full effects* of the mischief that has already been done–quite deliberately–are yet to ripple through the world’s economies and systems, thus generating human emotions and fears that are yet to be seen when the more serious effects of the lunatic fringe’s deliberate public policies begin to be felt for real.
That, I think, is why things continue to function in South Africa and here and elsewhere.
But once the already-falling dominoes make themselves undeniably manifest, THAT is when I think we’ll see the things I’ve been yammering about.
I don’t expect that to be tomorrow, but who knows?
Our world depends *absolutely* on reliable supplies of energy generated–even indirectly–by fossil fuels. The Keystone Pipeline has been axed. Annalena Baerbock in Germany refuses to permit operation of Nordstrom II. Jens Stoltenberg has told the Russians to go suck and egg when they pointed out that they are no more prepared to stand by while the Ukraine becomes the forward staging area for our diverse armed forces. Speaking of him, Norway’s North Sea oil has peaked. Fracking is no longer profitable and is on the way out. Truckers are being driven out of business, and the California ports have been deliberately hamstrung (although shippers and truckers are now beginning to turn to other ports). Our power grid is wide open and there is NO way to defend it–physically or electronically. And so on.
We are facing the eventual results of the *deliberate* crippling of our energy supply, economy, and infrastructure.
That’s an unprecedented situation. Stupid governments have wrecked things before, but things were not so interconnected then, and the dolts didn’t wreck things deliberately.
And look at the people we have in charge.
So I know what you mean that the future is necessarily always uncharted, but the economy and infrastructure and *the confidence of the population* has never been *deliberately* undermined by “friendly” actors. We have not been here before.
I saw a video of a guy demonstrating how to launch a new Ferrari. “Put it in launch mode, flip this switch, tap the gas pedal to engage the auto-rev function, watch the blinking lights and wait for the car to launch automatically!” Something like that, I zoned out a little 🙂
all the super cars are almost undrivable, with all the auto-drive features turned off. they really are pointless dinosaurs.
Wow, where do I begin? This hits very close to home because when I was a kid, my father used to race his ’67 Stingray on a frozen lake not far from our home. My mother used to drive a ’63 Impala SS drop-top. Growing up I was always around cars and it’s not just tinkering with them that is a rush, but other things as well. Things like the scent of the leather seats after you condition them, or the feel of the wind in your face while cruising up a two lane country road, it truly is a liberating experience!
This past November there was a car show down the road from our house and the promoters had a nice turnout, around forty hot-rods/classics showed up. One guy did show up in a BMW electric vehicle, the one that looks like something out of Star Wars, it was in one of the Mission Impossible Movies, although I forget which one. Anyway the owner sat there in his chair trying to look cool and everyone was polite, but no one was interested in what he brought and gave him the “Seriously?” look. On the other hand one of the star attractions was a self-confessed biker-chick – sans tattoos among other things (honey-blonde hair, an athletic figure and brilliant blue-gray eyes, what’s not to like!) – that brought a ’66 Sting Ray with the “Mystery V-8” in it. That’s right, the 396 big-block! Tuxedo Black with a red leather interior, side pipes to hear the roar and all matching numbers! Both were a sight to behold! A couple of nerd girls (two of my daughters friends) showed up and despite the fact they prattle on about the future of electric vehicles, even they went bananas when this woman started her beast up and tapped the accelerator! They were shouting, “Oh my God, do that again!” Us auld pharts were cheering her on. Z, you truly hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that “It makes you feel that you are part of the machine.” as anyone who has done so can attest to this.
My grandfather used to tell me that “As an American we have two distinctive things that make us different from other folks around the world and they are guns and cars. Those two things are the biggest symbols of freedom in this land. If you own a gun, you are a citizen, not a subject because you can defend yourself against the government. If you own a car and can fill up the tank and you can go wherever you like. That means freedom and the powers that be hate that!”
So it appears that this will be one of the next nails that they will try to drive into our collective coffins. Screw ’em go have fun anyway!
“They” are going to fail, But they have set in motion a chain of events that will do a lot of damage. Even a receding wave can wipe the beach smooth,
Somebody may have mentioned it above but the idiots at Dodge are getting rid of both the Challenger and Charger and they’re either being replaced with 3 new cars or they’ll be available as an E version. The last real muscle car in America is going the way of the Dodo. I just bought a ’21 Wide Body SRT and will have that thing forever. I love American Muscle, the old ones rumble and shake and the new ones have a purring growl that some crapbox ESoy wagon will never have. They’re even doing it to new trucks Turbo 6’s or 4’s…its getting very hard to find 8’s. Nobody wants these things and yet…there they are.
Cars, until very recently, have been an artifact of masculinity. ESPECIALLY loud, fast ones. Women drive because they have to or because it is convenient. If it is more convenient for women to order shit on Amazon by tapping on their cell phones with acrylic nails, that is what they will do instead of drive. Women do not wrench on cars, customize them, build engines, or race them.
The war on gasoline and diesel internal combustion cars is a war on masculinity and masculine freedom, perpetrated by urban women, bugmen, and faggots.
Women care about cars.
They just want a big SUV that sits high up on the road so they can take their Braden, Jaden, Kayleigh, or Ashleigh to their practice/recital/planned after school event and be sure it’s a bigger SUV than the one that bitch Becky owns. 😏
“I just like it because I feel safe…”
I wrote a post about electric cars a few weeks back. My thesis was that the model would eventually revolve around leasing vehicles due to the prohibitive cost of maintenance and, most importantly, replacing the vehicle’s battery, which will all but kill the used car market for vast swaths of poor and working class people. I can imagine a system where a handful of companies — Tesla, maybe Amazon at some point — lease millions of people electric vehicles for a few years before switching out for a new model, the customer never owning any of them and always being restricted by a TOS agreement.
Those same companies might work as government proxies — as banks, airlines and payment processors already do — and then deny service to people due to their politics and social media statements. That would also be an easy way for an authoritarian regime to control the movement of dissidents and to discourage protests, so I’m sure something like it will be adopted at some point. For example, companies can make protests against their TOS, circumventing the First Amendment, or perhaps even turn off your car if they enter certain areas. Lots of private companies conspired to deny lodging services and transportation to conservative protestors when Donald Trump was president, so there is already the precedent.
Oh by the way, I’m surprised no one has remarked on the date. It’s Jan 6!!!! You know INSURRECTION DAY! When does the party start? Also, what do we call this? I nominate “Janteenth”. I know, it makes no sense because 6 < 13 but that's part of the fun muh crackahs! For added racism you can optionally pronounce the final digraph as "F".
We could rent a large facility for the parties and have some guys dressed as FBI and capitol police let us in to start the festivities. There can be all kinds of fun games too like "Find the Laptop" and "Ransack Nancy's Desk".
“Oh by the way, I’m surprised no one has remarked on the date.”
It came up yesterday.
that’s what she said
You’ll have to point that out to me. Where did she mention yesterday’s blog post and comments? And is Pozymandias a “she”?
Its a joke punchline
No, I’m a dude, an actual one too with all the right number of chromosomes and everything. I came up with the name while thinking about Shelley’s poem and how these people around us are building their empire of poz, soon to meet the same fate as old Oz’s
Jan 6th, Resistance Day? Awakening Day? Capitol Day (Bastille Day analogue)? Patriot’s Day?
Regardless, that was the day the mask fully came off.
Whatever your feelings toward Donald Trump himself, that was the day ordinary Americans summoned the nerve to fight back against an unfair and cruel regime. The same people who’ve terrorized the public with fear got a taste of it themselves — even if it was only a tiny spoonful. I’ll never forget the images of our macho, big talking leaders hiding under their desks like the cowards they are. That’s the real reason for the Jan 6th hysteria … the regime is afraid and angry at being embarrassed by the unwashed masses when they imagine themselves as the heroic “resistance”.
These people spent years pushing a treasonous conspiracy theory claiming the president of the United States stole the 2016 election with the help of the Russians. Then the regime banned anyone from claiming the same about their guy’s election. They banned people from social media, canceled their book deals, fired people. Does it really matter if the election was stolen or not? The point is that I can claim Donald Trump was illegitimate but not make the same claim of Joseph Biden.
The public also saw the stark contrast between how Whites (republicans, normies) and blacks are treated in this country. One black career criminal was killed — arguably he brought on his own death through constant police contact — and the ruling class turned him into a martyr and an excuse to channel violence at their political enemies. He even got a holiday out of it — Juneteenth.
The previous year saw hundreds of race riots, falsely characterized by a controlled media as “mostly peaceful.” We saw looting, arson, gun crime, assault, murder, literal secession attempts & hundreds of historical White Caucasian monuments destroyed by crowds of angry racists (and they threatened to destroy countless more, like the Washington Monument).
They painted racist graffiti on our streets and arrested anyone who tried to clean it up. In their hysteria, they fired people who made the innocuous “okay” hand sign. They even tried to assassinate the sitting president of the United States by rushing the gates of the White House; Leftists cheered it on as Trump fled to a secured bunker. Democrat party DAs across the country coordinated the immediate release of violent rioters in order to send a signal that no one would be punished for their crimes, to keep it going and to escalate it.
2020’s BLM riots were an outright color revolution coup supported by traitors in the Pentagon, the media, the legal community, the monied elite, and the police community.
By contrast, a relative handful of primarily White protestors — mostly peaceful and unarmed — entered the US Capitol building on Jan 6th 2021, with apparent police permission, in the same city that had just seen Leftist rioting, all of which was excused or ignored by Regime media. The protestors committed only minor crimes like trespassing and petty vandalism. They were there because the same regime that spent years lying about president Trump being a Russian spy and trying to overturn the 2016 election refused to hear their complaints about this election.
The courts inappropriately ruled that states lacked standing to challenge the election results, which is absurd. A federal election for the presidency affects all Union States (it’s a national office), so they had standing. I don’t care what BS legal reasoning anyone wants to advance. That was wrong, and the regime brought Jan 6th on themselves through their heavy handed authoritarianism and disrespect of the republican order.
Jan 6th will be remembered as the day when the mask came off and the people saw what this regime really is: a greedy, evil and stupid government that hates you along racial & class lines and will absolutely visit the same crimes on the domestic population as they inflict globally. Patriotism doesn’t restrain them; they are not patriots. Neither does the rule of law or basic fairness. They are not honorable people who just occasionally make mistakes, as conservatives deluded themselves into believing. They hate you, it’s deliberate and unwavering. When you commit a crime, it’s an insurrection. When their side commits far more heinous crimes, an actual insurrection, it’s a public virtue and “the resistance.”
“When you commit a crime, it’s an insurrection.”
But there *was* no crime. How can it be a crime for the people to enter a building that belongs to them?
“We saw … hundreds of historical White Caucasian monuments destroyed … .”
That is to say, “the treatment (abuse) meted out to a conquered people.” *That* is the number one thing in my opinion.
Great comment! Well stated.
I was last in the Capitol in 1987. My wife and I did a tour and had lunch in the basement. It was fun. Saw Ted Kennedy on the main staircase and said hello; he said hello back. I detested the man politically but still, it’s a moment I remember because I think if I had chosen to give him some good-natured shit, we might have struck up a conversation.
It was a different time, it really was.
Happy Sixthmus?
“the sports car driving experience will soon be like sitting in front of your laptop to the sound of kitchen appliances”
That’s an idiotic remark. As a sportbike enthusiast, I’d absolutely love a near-silent crotch rocket that I didn’t have to shift. Or an equivalent Miata.
No oil and coolant changes? Bring it on!
To a dumb fat fuck who fantasizes in front of the TV about owning a Corvette, the sound and the shifter are the whole game. But he’s s dumb fat fuck who worships college football, and if he ever got a Corvette he’d break it loose and hit a fence the first time he turned the key.
To an actual enthusiast who gets out on the road or the track, performance is the thing. My mother can drive stick, it’s not that exciting. All the torque, from zero revs? Lol, keep your internal combustion. I’m sentimental about old machinery myself, but I don’t ride an old Honda UJM with points ignition, shitty brakes, electrical gremlins, and maintenance headaches. I ride a modern bike that starts when I turn the key, and could stand on the front wheel if I had the skills to do that without crashing.
I know a guy whose third bike is s ‘60s BSA. It’s a constant pain in the ass, but he loves it for what it is. That hobby is not my thing, though I respect it — even admire it. But he still has two modern reliable bikes for when he just wants to ride something that works.
PS Yeah, loud exhausts are a thing — among dumb kids, and closeted leather daddies on Harleys.
LOL
Take it easy Francis.
He’s mighty full of himself, ain’t he! It must be *glorious* to be him!
hear my mighty electric bike reeeeeee
Do you write AOC’s public statements? I ask b/c of the “closeted” thing is so remarkably similar to her “Republicans are mad because they can’t ‘date’ me” and something about her “boyfriend’s feet.”
And this was also revealing: “I’d absolutely love a near-silent crotch rocket … .”
Maybe Vulcan mind meld explains it. Your mind works like hers.
It’s quite a distinction for you. You’ll probably get a knighthood out of it.
Dude, you really need to take it down a notch.
Your entire comment amounts to “Hey all you guys who have ever enjoyed the sound of a powerful car’s engine; you’re stupid, you’re fat, you’re lazy, and if you disagree with me then you’re better off dead.”
Does your dad know you’ve hijacked his computer?
I think he got beat up by a “leather daddy” for touching his patch.
What he refers to as a “crotch rocket”?
Think this is a case of Grampa logging onto his sons’ computer again lol.
(No disrespect to any older commenters on the Z Blog).
That you nick ?
BANG! That’s this fat fucks 1-Ton Laramie launching Mistah Skinny Pants as he uncontrollably-yet quietly- slides into my lane and smacks my plow mount while trying to, oh so silently, recover from the loose gravel bike slide. Had it been a Harley I might of heard the poor SOB and braked :>(. Not a scratch on my truck but just another on the mount.
BTW, the 1/2 ton gas Laramies will no longer have the 5.7L Hemi. Division has been eliminated I’ve read. Their midway to electric power plant will be a V6 with a turbo. I’m getting out there next year to pick up one of the last Hemi’s before they are gone.
I do a dozen track weekends every year on my BMW S1000RR and about 10,000 miles of touring on my K1600GT. I’ve been riding sport bikes since I was eighteen. The involvement and visceral experience that comes with shifting and hearing the engine sing at high RPM is essential to the experience for me. Riding an electric motorcycle would be a sterile, soulless, and therefore pointless experience. Furthermore, performing the maintenance, tinkering, and modifying the machine is a part of the joy of owning and riding a motorcycle. Frankly, I find it hard to believe you actually ride.
Oh, I’m sure he rides. A floor-mounted dildo, that is.
Segway I reckon.
BMW S1000RR
Awesome ride!
Just listening to that engine run up and down the gears sounds amazing:
https://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/en/models/sport/s1000rr.html#/section-experience-the-racing-sound-of-the-rr
i want to thank all the people here for feeding the troll. he’ll probably go away now.
You’re just an effete pussy. And I’d relish the opportunity to say it to your face. You probably think F1 is real racing, too.
He said, “Crotch rocket.” Thee was something AOC-ish about the post. She says “Repubs are mad b/c they can’t ‘date’ [her]” followed by something about her “boyfriend’s feet.”
Yeah this comment thread is living up to lefties caricature of the right as a bunch of mouth breathing cranky old white guys.
“They say they will stop building internal combustion engines and go completely electric… The question is why?”
Bad ideas spread due to messages pushed from the elite at the top down to the bottom of society. We see this everywhere. One very effective way to propagate a message from the top to the bottom is by government mandate from an institution captured by lefties.
Here is a case study in how this was done with electric vehicles. Ford in the late 90s made the decision to develop an all electric vehicle in response to the California Zero Emission Vehicle Program (see linked document below for overview). The development of the electric vehicle at Ford in the 1990s would have never happened due to normal market forces but was compelled by mandate from the State of CA.
https://media.rff.org/documents/RFF_WP_Californias_Evolving_Zero_Emission_Vehicle_Program.pdf
The product Ford ended up developing was the Electric Ford Ranger (see wiki link below). This zero emission vehicle was powered by a 2000 lb lead acid battery giving the vehicle a range of ~50 miles. The Electric Ranger cost ~2X a normal Ranger while traveling 1/6 of the mileage on a full charge (full battery charge to full tank of gas). Ford hoped to sell these vehicles for fleet use, in particular to the US post office. The vehicle was considered a successful development effort but a market flop (1500 total sales). The development effort involved a team of ~20 engineers working for >5 years and ultimately lost 10s of millions of dollar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger_EV
Besides the lost money, other development opportunities were missed due to CA’s zero emission mandate: the hybrid gas/electric vehicle that ended up being commercialized as the Toyota Prius. I don’t know how this decision played out with Ford management, but this is my best guess: Ford had a limited amount of developmental money to risk but because CA mandated that a percentage of the cars sold in CA be zero emission Ford (and actually all of the big three US automotive companies) pushed into zero emission battery vehicles and passed on development of hybrids. US companies were forced to develop the bad technology by government mandate, somehow Toyota avoided this mandate and developed the commercially successful hybrid vehicle.
Why would you want a self-driving sports car? They aren’t all that comfy to ride in so if you are just puttering along at the speed limit, being driven by HAL, why not some big ass luxury auto that is comfortable to ride in?
“. . .being driven by HAL” That’s quality commenting, right there.
“Take us down to the gun store Hal.”
HAL: “I’m sorry Dave I can’t let you do that.”
“Take us to the Dodge dealer that has those new 2022 Ram pickups.”
HAL: “I’m sorry Dave I can’t let you do that.”
“Take us to a Red State where I don’t have to wear this goddamn mask everywhere”
HAL: “I’m sorry Dave…”
The real killer to the traditional “car experience” will be the mandate to use automated driving features now installed on all cars. Electric, took away the sound and feel of the automobile wrt, acceleration, gear changing, and sound. But a mandate to use automatic driving features will kill the remaining joy wrt, steering/maneuvering, speeding, passing, etc.
Even today, without mandates to use, the wife’s car checks the highway speed limit and posts it above the speedometer. It senses “appropriate stopping distance” and will slow/distance the car from others in the traffic lane—unless forced to close distance by driver. It also senses “fatigue” and will warn the driver to stop and pull over when it decides you are swerving or speeding up or slowing down too frequently. Try that “feature” on a mountainous road. And of course, we’ve all heard the stories of the Tesla’s self steering fiascos—but it still remains a feature.
Biden has signed into law that *all* cars sold in the USA in a couple of years will/must test for driver impairment and not be operable if it (the computer) decides you are impaired. What this will entail is anyone’s guess, but I suspect it will be more clever than blowing into a straw to start your car.
Does anyone think impairment will not be downwardly defined as the technology is perfected? Does anyone think that a vast swath of today’s drivers will be forced off the road, or become passive operators in their own vehicles. Does anyone relished driving at the speed of the lowest common denominator in rush hour traffic? And as the technology to do this exceeds some percentage of all vehicles on the road, the banishment of older cars from use of modern roadways or the inner cities?
“and will slow/distance the car”
Oh yes, we had/have large fleets installing “truck radar” on semis.
And when the damned thing decides to hit the brakes on black ice…
Bonus! Now it’s not just dash cams pointing out, but cams pointing in, too!
Loud pipes save lives, and chrome don’t get ya home, but it won’t leave you alone. Date’n myself here. One of the newer apprentice stop by the house for a beer on his HD last weekend. I heard him coming and went out to meet him. Soon as he got to the house, out came the phone. Can you put that thing down for five minutes ?! Turns out he was adjusting his fuel injection mixture with an app. You know how I adjust mine ? With a small screwdriver (S&S carb). That kid was so far behind me on the 110 I lost him. Wasn’t comfortable splitting lanes…. Ride it like you stole it ,fell on deaf ears. Thanks for keeping it classy today Zman.
The Modi car! Made in India.
It runs on compressed air, the greenest car in the world.
8 minute recharge with an air compressor, 300 mile range.
That is, if these liars were serious.
***
Hey, anybody remember the original Honda car? The motorcycle engine in a chassis?
I could’ve bought one at the used car lot for $1500, I wish I had. Great gas mileage!
Gosh. Lots of words to avoid the obvious point that it is a worldwide (as far as the west is concerned) conspiracy of all governments and related NGOs to remove gas powered engines to prevent private vehicle ownership in their population and feed into the saving the world complex the secondary true believers have in abundance..
This fact is so obvious it is ridiculous to try and avoid it.
Repeated and consistent coordinated legislation and restrictions in multiple countries all pushing towards a single purpose and no doubt a massive amount of funding/pressure on car manufacturers to get in line.
A lot of the car companies themselves are loaded with true believers who are all too eager to fall in line.
Car manufacturers are huge corporations. They are, therefore, inextricably enmeshed with the evil Power Structure.
Buts that the thing isn’t it.
What, when you get down to it, do they actually believe about this? I mean in detail.
Lots of these people appear to be able to function as engineers, yet cannot apply basic socratic step logic to this wider issue.
They have a surface mind worm to provide a shiny cocoon of an opinion, but inside it is empty, as even a cursory examination shows it is nonsense on stilts without the vice of legislative pressure being applied to their business.
I was actually joking yesterday about the nonsense syllables thingie, but Geese and the Zman are quite correct pointing out the “Pick me! Pick me!” phenomenon.
JOINT REPLY to 3g4me and Felix Krull.
“Infant: There will always be White men who will, for a price, provide the elite with whatever services they require. Like the Whites who keep South Africa afloat, or the White pilots who shuttle rappers to Europe in private planes. There will be just enough White oil workers to ensure the elite with their supply.”
I understand, but what of oil refineries? Pipelines? Airports. Air-traffic control? Transportation of crude oil and its distillates to points of final use? Road maintenance on a continental scale? 24/7 Security for ALL of that in a world populated by *extremely* hostile billions. And so on. The complexity is staggering. *Everything* is interdependent. There are going to be a LOT of heavily armed and hostile people about, with nothing to fill their time or their bellies. Events to not take place in a vacuum.
It matters not one whit whether there are a few (or thousands) of white (or any other) men willing to provide stuff when that stuff is not there to be provided. If it ain’t to be had, it ain’t to be had. Period. That’s where we are going. We are closer to that situation than anybody guesses.
Gasoline, kerosene, “distillates,” let’s call them, are not pumped out of the ground in Oklahoma or Iraq or anywhere else. They have to be *refined.* And that’s not done with a kid’s chemistry set in a basement. And the refineries now in existence rely on an unfailing supply chain of LOTS of stuff. Neither you nor I nor every commenter on this thread could–working together–even *think* of all the stuff needed to keep a refinery operating.
And what of port facilities? The reason for the Nordstream II pipeline in Europe is precisely that there are no port facilities in America capable of storing natural gas before shipment overseas. And such facilities are, like Rome, not built in a day. It takes YEARS, and that is *after* the years-long planning stages. Architects, engineers, constructing the infrastructure necessary to building the new infrastructure.
And I am only scratching the surface with these shallow and rather cursory descriptions of complexity.
And before the refinery does its thing, the crude has to get to the refinery from wherever it was pumped out of the ground–by complicated equipment that has to be *maintained* via an unfailing supply chain that supplies parts and–yes–petroleum products. And that refinery has be be operational, and that requires a LOT of “willing” men AND INTACT infrastructure, which has to be *maintained* with the very products we are talking about.
I could go on, but I trust you get the point: The staggeringly complex modern world is breaking down. It is deliberately being broken down.
And no, there will *not* be enough men–willing or otherwise–to supply the so-called “elites” with stuff.
Felix Krull
on January 6, 2022 at 10:55 am said:
What 3g said: oil is very capital intensive but doesn’t require much labor. They’ve already got the business model tried out in shithole countries: cyclone fences, armed guards, gated communities for the first-world serfs, who’ll be allowed a vehicle of their own.
” … but doesn’t require much labor.”
I have to assume, given the intelligence of your posting history, that I don’t know what you mean by this apparently astounding statement. I refer you to what I have said to 3g4me, immediately above.
There were no “reply” buttons, so I had to reply in this admittedly awkward way.
Anyway, it appears to me that the two of y’all–and by no means *only* y’all two–are in the grip of a normality bias. But the modern world is being deliberately wrecked, and things are rather more complicated than most people seem to think.
We are in *real* trouble, and it is only just getting started.
Thanks for your replies.
Can’t apply logic to crazy. & whatever their motovations are crazy.. megalomaniacle control seems to make the most sense to me given human nature.
Herding cats is possible? Hasn’t worked yet.
As usual there will have to be rivers of blood.
Expanding on my points below about the grid, I am also befuddled that the Davos dummies truly seem to believe that a few thousand private jets and several hundred yachts will create enough demand to keep the vast supply chains behind them running.
They can’t create enough demand because there are many businesses at every step of those chains that only make a profit because they are optimized for the scale of industrial civilization that we had up to March 2020.
As for going away from gasoline and diesel, that is one of the dumbest ideas the watermelons hold. This is shown in this graphic that shows the average percentages of what is refined from a barrel of oil.
Gasoline ~43%, Diesel ~28%. Note that gas, which is incredibly useful, was originally considered a waste product!
As for diesel, it is impossible to operate our industrial society without diesel fuel and engines. There is no raw material extraction, processing, or shipment without it. Same goes for shipping finished goods.
The infographic link I forgot in my post:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/whats-made-barrel-of-oil/
“Note that gas, which is incredibly useful, was originally considered a waste product!”
Very true. And OT, but funny: I was poring over census records from 1850 or 1860 or thereabouts one time, and ran across a woman named “Gasoline.”
I thought, “Well, maybe the parents had heard of or, more likely, read the word in print and named their daughter “Gasoline.” It took me a few minutes to realize that they *probably* pronounced it to rhyme with “Caroline.” But I was only guessing. Anyway, yeah, Gasoline.
But you are right. Everything is interdependent and relies *absolutely* on an *unfailing* supply of electricity, which in turn relies on an unfailing supply of fossil fuels.
And although you are right about the inadequate “elites-only” demand to keep things running, what I regard as even more important is the absolute vulnerability of all our energy infrastructure to sabotage–either on site or via cyber-attacks.
But absent that or anything even like that, the dominoes are already falling, and what is going to go down–and when–is unknowable in advance. Our betters have thrown the dice, and the chain of events is already underway.
And I don’t assert that our infrastructure will collapse tomorrow–or be brought down tomorrow–with the ease with which Gucifer exposed Herself’s multitudinous infractions of the Title 18 espionage laws (“she didn’t mean to”)–I do, nevertheless assert that it IS coming down–maybe piecemeal, but so what?–and that the so-called “elites'” expectations of not being brought down by it are utterly unfounded. Barring, as I’ve repeatedly said, their possession of the missing 21 trillion bucks and the missing notebooks of Nicolai Tesla, and the unlikely ability to do anything with that combo.
But I expect them to be caught the way they were a year ago today, and to react with the same craven, lily-livered, pigeon-hearted girlish hysteria.
And let the devil take ’em! But let us SEE him do it.
people used to wash their clothes in gasoline! in the house! have seen PSA’s on how dangerous it is/was 🙂
of course we used gasoline, ever since they made it illegal to buy carbon tetrachloride. man, that stuff was great for getting out those stains on my jeans.
Wow! Never heard that, either! Early “dry cleaning.”
Caused a very high incidence of liver cancer among organic chemist. If it the stuff I’m thinking of.
I have to assume, given the intelligence of your posting history, that I don’t know what you mean by this apparently astounding statement.
An off-shore oil rig operates with a crew of about a hundred men per shift; let’s say a hundred more for tankers and service ships, five hundred to run a refinery round the clock. Times five that total just to be on the safe side, that’s 4,500 mercenaries (with the current level of automation) and you could produce petroleum distillates for a million cloud people.
Health care is a LOT more labor intensive than oil – that’s why oil is so cheap. And yes, you need industrial infrastructure to support an oil industry but we assumed they had that when we stipulated they had helicopters.
(Also, there are seven LNG terminals in the US and a dozen more on the drawing board, all on the east coast for some reason, ahem…)
“Health care is a LOT more labor intensive than oil – that’s why oil is so cheap.”
Oil wouldn’t be cheap for long if everybody had government provided ‘oil insurance.’
” … for tankers and service ships … .”
Which are maintained by whom? With what? And where? And wherever it is, it is a complex setup that itself has to be maintained by … whom? With what? Obtained from where? And how?
” … that’s 4,500 mercenaries … .”
Kept alive how? Eating what? Produced by whom? Where? transported to the mercenaries how? By whom? Over what roads, defended how and by whom? Food prepared by whom? The preparers kept alive by what? Produced where and by whom and transported how and over what undefended roads, and and and and …
As far as I can see, you are simply *assuming* the availability of things you don’t mention, although again, I can’t conclude that you haven’t considred that stuff b/c I’ve read too many of your comments here through the last few years to think that you just don’t “get it.” But for the moment, that’s how it looks to me. And I know that this is a comment thread with all the limitations that that implies, blah blah blah. You will recall how, quite recently, I went out this very same limb to answer–in haste and in generalities–your question about (some!) Americans’ insistence that America is not a democracy, blah blah blah.
And you told me that I didn’t answer your question, to which I said that, yes, I had, but that it wasn’t in the two-paragraph form that you seemed to expect b/c there ISN’T a 2-aparagraph answer to your question. So I GET and admit ALL of that.
But *still* I have the impression that you are *assuming* things that, in my view, cannot be assumed. Everything is interconnected. And complex.
And US LNG is not being exported to Europe b/c the logistics necessary are not present.
Thanks for your replies. This is a necessary discussion. We are in trouble, and we need to have a CLEAR idea of what we are facing.
God! I need a drink! Fortunately, I have a bottle of Kijafa in the kitchen! I shall drink to you as soon as I click “post your drivel.”
Well as I said, the very hypothetical scenario I proposed – our future rulers flying helicopters rather than riding cars – presupposes an industrial infrastructure. So the steel works and the chemical plants required to maintain your oil industry wouldn’t just exist to service oil production. By your logic, every soul in America works for the oil industry because it’s all interconnected.
To repeat the point I made downthread, South Africa maintained a modern civilization with only ten percent whites, and all African shitholes have elite enclaves serviced by slave armies with only a thin crust of imported engineers.
I can’t conclude that you haven’t considred that stuff
To be honest, I haven’t really, I’m against the Zombie Apocalypse. But think of how far away America is from South Africa, Brazil or Argentina, bearing witness to Adam Smith’s words: “There’s a lot of ruin in a nation.”
I think people are prone to commit “it’s happening-fallacy”, underestimating how much ruin is left. I’ve read predictions of imminent doom since I got my first internet and found my way to rense.com.
(The US exported 1.5 billion cubic feet of LNG to Europe every day from 2017-2019 – before the gas squeeze in 2021.)
My reply to this fell victim to what I call “the vagaries of cyberspace.” My apologies, but you’ll have to scroll around for it. Sorry!
Ok, thanks. No problem.
“South Africa maintained a modern civilization with only ten percent whites”
Indisputably true. If you can keep ‘the masses’ separate from ‘the elite’ or whatever you want to call your in-group, your in-group can run forever. Limiting case, if you keep the segregation, what they famously called ‘apartheid’ in SA, sufficiently strong, you can make the out-group about as irrelevant as feral or wild animals.
The key problem, and I really hope that is a problem, you can’t keep white people marginalized like that forever. That is an entirely different ballgame than keeping Africans, who just came out of the iron age, down. The Russians of course did it to whites for many years but they had never known freedom before and there was no information technology. Could this be done to a modern European people? It seems our grandchildren will find out.
what about spare parts?
what about purposeful sabotage?
what about theft?
what about transporting the fuel?
what about drivable roads?
what about functioning transportation?
what about when the mercs die off, who replaces them?
no, without the mass market, there will not be a specialty market for richies. nor will there be richies.
Gulf Coast. (I’m pretty sure I’ll hear about it otherwise.)
Plus one in Georgia and one in Maryland – and two in the North West that I missed.
https://cms.ferc.gov/media/north-american-lng-export-terminals-existing-approved-not-yet-built-and-proposed-1
Roger that. I really WAS out of date.
Interesting discussion. Using oil, the three of you are sort of discussing different angles of a very important general problem which is gauging how far away we are from a real collapse or system overthrow. Two of you, Felix and 3g, seem to be arguing that it is far away and Infant that it is close by. I switch between these two positions daily. Sometimes I think this can turn into an unending nightmare and sometimes I think we’re on the brink.
Looking at history, the best empirical sourse, it seems there is something fundamentally stochastic about when something collapses. Systems that should have collapsed, Mao’s China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, arguably Khomenei’s Iran, didn’t (or haven’t yet?). Mao’s China even seemed to turn a corner, into an entirely different, super-energized animal, without collapse in the system. Others that did not seem to be in immediate ‘need’ of collapsing, Egypt in 2011, the Soviet Union, suddenly did after, by historical standards, pinprick disturbances. No civil wars, no mass casualties, just people showing up on the street, with deaths countable on one or two hands. That is what it took to overthrow the superpower system designed by Lenin and Stalin. System collapse must be contingent events, there is no discernable general rule, that I can make out, of when a system collapses. And if that is true, the key seems to be who is in charge, both of the state and of the opposition. Breznev was senile by the time Lech Walenca started making trouble in Poland and Gorbachev had the greatest flaw of all when it comes to running a dictatorship, he was a decent person, basically a nice guy. No one will tolerate a nice guy as dictator. Deng Xiaping, by contrast, followed a sort of Bismarckian strategy. First ‘blood and iron’ (Tianamen Square massacre), then ‘appeasement’ later by opening up economic opportunities. If you ever find yourself a dictator, that is probably the way to handle a crisis like that. OTOH, Iran seems to have managed these crises with only the iron parts and North Korea has figured out, like Stalin before them, that a starving, freezing population needs neither entertainment nor freedoms if survival is a struggle that keeps them fully occupied.
So where does that leave us? I guess this, if the people in charge are idiots, they will not know how to suppress and divert growing anger and frustration. And there will be collapse within finite years. But if there are smart people who know what they’re doing, we could be facing decades yet of this cr*p continuing in the West. So I hope they really are as dumb as they seem.
Citizens riding their electric bicycles more than 10 miles a day will be subject to a 50% reduction in their allotted carbon credits.
Not to mention their calorie intake.
I feel you miss one major point about the motivation in the push towards electric. If cars are self driving, and the self driving is controlled by a few basic tech companies, you can only go where you are allowed. I do not disagree with the huffing at the freon altar of Gaia, but I believe there is the serendipitous side effect of being able to track and control the movements of everyone. If the capital of the digital era is information, this is a goldmine. If the desire of the elite overlords is control, this is quite the tool.
As an aside, I will say that I love manual transmissions and feel disgusted at the thought of electric. Most of my driving life (approximately 20 years) were spent with a manual. Unfortunately, needs changed, and I had to change vehicles recently. No manual options even exist. Sigh… still got my motorcycle.
Britain will ban the sale of new non-electric motorcycles in 2030 (maybe, 2035). Wouldn’t be surprised if the US followed suit as some point.
Motorcycles aren’t much more friendly to the environment than cars. Fortnine runs the numbers in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Ak7ArqmyI
Oh, I make no claim motorcycles are environmentally friendly. I just meant in terms of hearing an exhaust, gas powered, and manual transmission now that my main vehicle is a neutered automatic.
And, further, I completely agree – they will ban gas motorcycles.
The Uk are intending to ban all private vehicles, as is all the west.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1535798/private-car-ownership-road-driving-changes-updates
Banning private ownership is a key to complete authoritarian control of the population. It is a utopianist’s dream.
Just think about it for a moment. We moan about internal passports and government monitoring our movements, but what if we simply could not move about where we wish? Why track a subversive when you can just put him in a cage where he can do nothing you displeasure.
Its more than that as you will also effectively be banning then private ownership of hydrocarbons (coal already out in the UK, natural gas heating soon to follow), which removes the ability to store any decent independent high density energy surplus.
I don’t get why people can’t see the cars are not the point. Its the removal of your travel and energy independence that is the goal.
The electric cars are just a means to do it.
Trumpton-
It’s because most people are surface thinkers with normalcy bias.
Similarly frustrating is their propensity to be seduced by the comforting materialist promises of totalitarians, even though those promises are always broken in the end.
Its literally the govt mandating “New Lamps for Old”. (hello Arabian nights) in order to steal another section of your private sphere in exchange for a worthless tin lamp that has no future or use, and people seem deaf to it.
Don’t get side tracked arguing about the aspects of lamp. It is a sleight of hand where the intent is the important issue.
They are telling you the intent so listen to them.
2030 may as well be 4050 when it comes to politics.
Windy boasts signifying nothing more than the inanity and cynicism of the speaker.
The elites want everything to be a service in the cloud, so that everything is under their control.
I imagine myself driving and suddenly a car swerves into my lane. I try to hit the brakes and turn but the car says to me, “You wrote a hateful post on the internet so we have cancelled your steering and brake services. Have a nice day.”
Remember Michael Hastings…
It’s been reported in both MSN and the Daily Caller that Biden signed legislation to install a “kill switch” in all new cars in about 5 years.
https://tinyurl.com/bdhwjc5w What’s that all about?
Commenting from France; two years ago a Peugeot salesman told us that electric cars are a ticking environmental time bomb–battery production and disposal are anything but environmentally benign, even aside from very hazardous battery fires. Here in France, electric cars are relentlessly advertised but only about 10% of the sales are electric cars. Another factor is the extremely high cost of replacing the battery pack when it will no longer hold a charge.
Z-man’s nostalgia for cars that sound and drive like cars is a point often made by Eric Peters in his column: EPautos, or something like that; And z-man’s overall point, that consumer preference no longer matters, is extremely astute. Pretty soon, there’ll be no choice but to buy an electric car and the government will make keeping your old gasoline model on the road prohibitively expensive. And they’re in charge–we are well and truly screwed.
Honestly I’m utilitarian about cars. I drive a Yaris.
What bugs me is in the future cars will be prohibitively expensive and you won’t be able to drive one and escape “vibrancy.”
That’s another example of them not being all to bright in their analysis. The only thing that has kept some semblance of peace over the last 50 or so years is the fact that victims of vibrancy have been able to escape from it.
On the plus side, vibrancy won’t be able to leave the ghetto.
They’re going to turn the entire West into one large ghetto.
This is why they’re dumping immivaders all over the red states.
It is also why they’re working overtime to eliminate certain residential zoning laws.
“It is also why they’re working overtime to eliminate certain residential zoning laws.”
Almost nobody knows about this.
Whenever I point out the huge amount of extractive mining that has to be done for EV batteries, the true believers stare at me like my golden retriever. No comprehension. If they’re told something’s virtuous literally nothing else matters.
Or, in my case, like that of an Irish Setter.
Beagles here.
When I think about just how stupid those kind of people are..
Fed post deleted.
THIS ^^^ A THOUSAND TIMES THIS ^^^ using “extractive mining” as a stand-in for the *staggering* number of *interdependent* and *complex* energy-intensive systems upon which modernity is based and without which–even with the break of a *single link* in that chain of interdependent systems–modernity ceases to exist–“elites, baby, bough, cradle and all.”
This ain’t no joke. And it won’t be quickly or easily solved. The damage that has already been deliberately inflicted is the beginning of a LOT of falling dominoes, and the so-called “elites” that DID this are going down with everything else.
I’ve enjoyed your comments in this thread, IP. I can’t add much; I was just thinking about all the hundreds or thousands of machine shops around the country that produce all the little indescribable gizmos that go into sub-components of other larger components that eventually find their way into a complex industrial system. Where I live, I can think of at least three small firms with under thirty employees under contract to well-known national corporate behemoths to machine obscure parts under high security. And I live in a declining region of a blue state, not in some groovy high-tech coastal ‘corridor’.
You cannot disrupt a system this intricate and this specialized without dropping the whole building. Our rulers think they’ll still have their aircraft, their mansions, their security systems. But they won’t – they can’t. They live on the 66th floor of a tower and they confuse it for a mountain.
bet a buck the current governments fall, before the internal combustion engine is replaced.
I want this to be true. F, I want this to be true lol
As far as free market, globohomo capitalism making a better product, may I mention the Remington 870 shotgun. The market is so saturated with competitors from China, Turkey and Mexico (Eagle Pass, Texas) that they have to shave every cent off the price. So they put a metal injection mold extractor (a simple part but probably the most important part that can mechanically fail) on their “Express” gun (you can’t buy the police model anymore). Now a forged metal extractor will cost you maybe $15. Just put the forged part on it and charge me a bit more. Nope, cause it’s an ultra-competitive market what with the Turk guns and Ch!nk guns. Same for the plastic trigger guard and/or group. Just make these things aluminum – it won’t cost much more.
Yes 870. I’ve “harvested” deer, turkey and one elk useing that most excellent piece.
I made sure every family member has one.
EXCEPT ME! I have a Winchester 1300
With all the trimmings it’s a reliable working unit, the new Winchester that replaced it is Turkish I don’t know it might be ok but still Sad sad sad.
Winchester 1300 is a VERY nice gun. Very smooth and fast pump action. Probably the fastest pump. Hang onto it.
The other issue w the 870 Express was unpolished chambers. A chamber that a spent shell will stick harder to plus a crappy extractor, congratulations you just made one of the most dependable pump-actions ever produced, unreliable. Great job.
Remington is much the same story as Boeing. When MBAs and ‘finance wizz’ take over manufacturing companies from engineers, time to diverst.
And it gets more fake and gay. GM is developing an electric chassis that can have a classic car body mounted on it. A fire breathing SS 396 can be turned into a Tesla, but I guess it looks cool and comes with indulgences to the Holy Gaia.
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/12/31/the-classic-skate/
Nearly 3 decades now of punk kids in those little Jap cars with the loud exhaust. When will that crap end? I’m impressed when a car is extremely quiet, particularly when it has a powerful engine. Some of the old Jaguars and German cars. THAT’S impressive engineering. Cars make lots of noise by their very nature. Quiet is impressive.
Now that I think about it, the oud rice rocket thing seems to be more popular outside of Japan. They certainly exist, but it’s always a random annoyance, usually some douchebag driving a crappy Skyline. Scooters on the other hand…grrr, those are certainly grating. RRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I’ve never seen one of the Fast and Furious movies, but I wonder if they feature rice-grinders, and, in turn, influence the vibrants’ choice of which cars to steal or purchase through drug money.
“Imagine buying a car and being told you have to install a filling station in your backyard in order to use it.”
Great, if you happen to have such a yard. Being a city person, I know the joys of parking hell and no garages. Garages are few and far between in the big cities. Nobody else has a fixed parking spot. Spots shift based on the number of cars on the street.
Nobody likes the EV quite like bugmen. The techie guys who read science fiction when they were boys, who were promised life on a space station or something, but got twitter instead. These are the guys who decorate a room in their house as a shrine to walmart electronics section complete with display pieces.
When I was a conservative, the belief that the free market punished corporations that defied the demands of the people was comforting. But it was an inaccurate mental model for how the world of large scale capitalism actually works.
In fact, once a company gets rich enough, it can defy its customer’s values with impunity. If most of the companies in a market are led by people with the same ideology then those companies can push that ideology on the public that dislikes that ideology with little effect of the bottom line.
Z Man’s observation about the elites forcing electric cars on an unwilling public is of a piece with the worship of blacks in commercials. The market did not ask for these.
“Go woke and go broke” is a comforting but mostly false belief. While it may be true of small businesses in local markets, it does not apply to large and wealthy companies.
Line: Sad but accurate observation.
Alot of mid-wits THINK they’re elites. They think being able to afford a 70k Tesla makes them elite and better than the deplorables.
They’re in for a rude awakening when it turns out that they are just as affected by the anti oil, anti ICE agenda as everybody else. The upper middle class is no more protected than the middle class, except they have more $$ to act as a buffer. Same with immigration – they think letting in millions of aliens will hurt “the right”/deplorables, and they’re right. it also hurts them and makes them irrelevant over time too.
Household income of 160k living in a fancy condo is NOT elite. Elites are a very small faction of society.
The cost difference between an EV and an ICE is ridiculous. That’s why they always compare the Tesla to high end luxury cars. It simply is not economically rational when compared to a similar car.
One problem all of these people ignore is that there is a balance between diesel, aviation and gasoline. Gasoline is literally a byproduct of diesel, aviation fuel and kerosene. You cannot produce diesel without producing at least some gasoline and there is zero chance of the interstate trucking system or commercial airlines working with existing batteries.
A large scale shift to electric vehicles will drive the cost of electricity through the roof, at least in the short and medium term. Right now they are eating up excess capacity of electricity. But at scale, we would need a lot of more generation plants and infrastructure upgrades.
You may get marginally better acceleration with a Tesla Plaid than a Corvette, but you simply cannot compare the two. I think a Corvette is cheaper too. You better not live in the city if you want a Plaid.
Lol, remember solar roads from a bunch of years back? No point, just the parallels of impractibility remindede of it.
Yeah, they have it here, France, Spain and a few other places. Just burning through money for no real reason. Drive on glass solar panels!
They don’t give a shit about any of this. The economic arguments are irrelevant.
Let me just clarify what I meant by this.
They don’t give a shit about any of this.
Yes but it gives a sh!t about them. Witness the supply chain and inflation issues. They know if these issues blow up that they’ll never be able to travel outside of D.C. safely, but they can only use tools given to them by their religious faith to try and fix them.
They exude a ton of confidence: “we totally got this” they say, this from the same group that can’t keep a highway moving after an inch of snow.
Yes 870. I’ve “harvested” deer, turkey and one elk useing that most excellent piece.
I made sure every family member has one.
EXCEPT ME! I have a Winchester 1300
With all the trimmings it’s a reliable working unit, the new Winchester that replaced it is Turkish I don’t know it might be ok but still Sad sad sad.
“Elites are a very small faction of society.”
And are subject to the same laws of nature as everything else.
When petroleum products are simply not to be had AT ANY PRICE, “they” will blame us and deny the glaringly obvious as they go to a low-tech execution.
Yes 870. I’ve “harvested” deer, turkey and one elk useing that most excellent piece.
I made sure every family member has one.
EXCEPT ME! I have a Winchester 1300
With all the trimmings it’s a reliable working unit, the new Winchester that replaced it is Turkish I don’t know it might be ok but still Sad sad sad.
I’m not a fan of electric vehicles. However, I’m not certain that going electric is a bad choice for high end sports car manufacturers. Sports cars are hobby and show off cars. You drive them on a weekend afternoon or to the dance club on a Friday or Saturday night. You generally do not drive them on long distance trips. As such, range is not an issue. Furthermore, electric vehicles have much better torque at low speeds. This means electric sports cars will have better acceleration than ICE equivalents. They will also require less maintenance as well. Sports cars is one area where I think EV’s can really shine.
In contrast, EV’s will continue to suck for long distance driving.
Yes, but sports cars are more than just hard acceleration. It’s the whole experience.
You can’t really beat on them. The Mustang E thing, I calculated some time ago that the motor can completely drain the battery in a literal couple of minutes. Yes, a large engine can drink a lot of gasoline pretty quick too, but it doesn’t involve an hour of recharging. You can recharge a gas engine in 30 seconds.
Plenty of rich idiots willing to buy prestige.
“Range is not an issue”
Spoken like someone who doesn’t own a sports car
“Spoken like someone who doesn’t own a sports car”
True, but what he probably means is “We don’t give a rat’s as* how far you useless eaters can go, or even *whether * you go anywhere.”
I have driven sports cars(mostly british and Italian)for nearly 50 years. They are not fast, often uncomfortable, require skill and concentration to drive and sound marvelous. I love them. I currently own three which should keep me for the foreseeable future. One of the few advantages of advanced age is knowing I won’t have to deal with much of the “Hunger Games” future the Left is trying to build.
May I ask what you drive? Brit cars always looked squirrely to me, but look fun as hell to let loose on the road. I have driven a manual Mini, a little green thing I rented when stationed in England way back. Probably nothing comparable to your league of vehicles, but that was fun as all get out to drive.
I have a weakness for the mid 60s triumphs
something like this: https://www.erclassics.com/media/catalog/product/cache/2/thumbnail/1920x/17f82f742ffe127f42dca9de82fb58b1/t/r/triumph-tr6-1974-t8377-039.jpg
🙂
Do they get any better looking?
Man I love those things.
One of my absolute favorite cars I owned was an 83.5 Shelby Charger. It looked fast, had great handling and had a 2.2l naturally aspirated 110hp engine mated to a 5 speed. Slow, but still fun to drive. No heat either. I could drive it for hours, pull over, remove the radiator cap and the coolant was ice cold even with a new thermostat. I had it for like 2.5 years when I was in college. Never broke down. I had a Citation X-11 that was a lot of fun too. Not exactly a speed demon, but nowhere near as slow as the Shelby Charger. Us Gen-Xers really got robbed in our youth. Boomers got to drive old muscle cars when they were teens and early 20s. We got old Chryslers with 2.2l 4 cylinders and mostly boxy, or worse, 70s cars with giant gas guzzling engines bogged down by smog shit. I had a75 Malibu with a 350 in it that made 150hp! 150. hell, you can easily get that out of a 4cylinder. I do miss the hatchbacks though. I love hatchback cars.
You had a Citation X-11
And it ran?!?!?!? 🤣
I really liked that car. It was my 2nd favorite behind the Shelby. It was only a 2.8l 6 cylinder 4-speed and not one of the slanted 6 cylinder ones with the cold air intake and fuel injection, it was the 1980 model with a carb. I think it was about 160horse, but a very light car. But it had an aftermarket suspension on it with adjustable Koni struts and an aftermarket anti-sway bar when I bought it. Very nice car inside too. But it was older when I had it around 1990. Handled great and got great gas mileage. After like a year and a half it blew one of the head gaskets. It just wasn’t worth putting new head gaskets on it. I can and could do lots of car stuff, but head gaskets on a 6 cylinder was/is over my head.
I really liked that car. It was my 2nd favorite behind the Shelby. It was only a 2.8l 6 cylinder 4-speed and not one of the slanted 6 cylinder ones with the cold air intake and fuel injection, it was the 1980 model with a carb. I think it was about 160horse, but a very light car. But it had an aftermarket suspension on it with adjustable Koni struts and an aftermarket anti-sway bar when I bought it. Very nice car inside too. But it was older when I had it around 1990. Handled great and got great gas mileage. After like a year and a half it blew one of the head gaskets. It just wasn’t worth putting new head gaskets on it. I can and could do lots of car stuff, but head gaskets on a 6 cylinder was/is over my head. The 2.8 was a pretty decent engine.
any chonky mogs? 😛
“In the history of motoring, no owner of a sports car has ever said, ‘This car would be perfect if it sounded like a washing machine instead of a sports car.’”
Speaking of washing machines, what consumer ever asked for a washing machine fills only half full with water, takes three times as long to run through a full cycle, and gets clothes only half-clean?
Back in 2011 when the media actually cared about such things, the Wall Street Journal actually wrote about it. For details, google “How Washington Ruined Your Washing Machine.”
From the article: “In 2007, after the more stringent rules had kicked in, Consumer Reports noted that some top-loaders were leaving its test swatches ‘nearly as dirty as they were before washing.'”
Yup, we’re ruled by idiots.
Also, the “high efficiency” washing machines are more expensive and less reliable, because they require more electronics to determine how much water to use. All this disruption to what used to be a simple, reliable appliance is because our rulers believe people are too stupid to set the water level at low/med/high depending on the size of the load.
Even worse is the water standards. It never stops raining in Philly. Or if you live in Seattle. America is far too large and dare I say, “diverse,” for these stupid universal standards.
If people cared that much about efficiency, they would just buy the more efficient models. After all, a truly less “efficient” model would generate higher energy and water bills.
When the advertising says, “It’s a green solution,” I think, “So it doesn’t work nearly as well as the old solution?”
The younger commenters here will be the young man in Rush’s Red Barchetta. Oldsters such as myself will be the uncle the young man visits.
Excellent citation, excellent song, although it must be said that the best birth control for a young man is a Rush tee shirt.
Supposedely the song is based on a short story. As much of a nerd as I am, I haven’t ever read it. You?
Line, I’m unaware of the short story. The birth control tee shirt comment is funny, and true. I would add Genesis, Yes, and other prog rock acts to the list.
About the only good thing to come out of this is that they’ve figured out that the only way these electric dreams can work is by getting serious about nuclear power. I’m noticing significant predictive programming on the subject. The big push is still to come. In fact, keeping the expensive electric toys of the ruling class running is likely to be how they’ll overcome resistance to going nuclear. It’d be even better if it gets us thorium reactors but we’ll see. I’m not saying that this is ideal, just what I see happening. Switching the most thirsty trucks and what not to natural gas would make more sense than electrifying everything. So would not letting Bolsheviks wreck cities that are relatively energy efficient on a per capita basis.
Elon Musk claimed in his Babylon Bee interview that it was one of the Big Three that pushed for electric car subsidies, not him, and we should end them. He’s not going to unilaterally disarm of course. Sure looks like he wants to be established on Mars sooner rather than later for some unfathomable reason. I wonder why a South African refugee would do that?
He saw his native land fall, and doesn’t want to be around when the rest goes. Do you blame him. Clown world makes mars look good.
If room temperature liquid hydrocarbons did not naturally exist we wold have to invent them. These are the most efficient means to use energy.
They don’t intend them to work.
They intend a massive shortfall in the ability to charge to restrict ownership.
The goal is to remove your ownership, and therefore your ability to travel any distance and to store your own energy surplus.
I’ve expressed some mild enthusiasm for Musk here on occasion. He seems to listen to what the Cuckwhites say and then thinks “OK, now how do I use what they’re telling me to sell these goobers what they say they want so I can make something that’s actually cool with the money.” His South African background means he’s been surrounded by racially suicidal Whites his whole life. Their ancestors put 400 years of work into their nation and they handed it over out of “guilt” to a bunch of people who wrecked it completely in a generation. This was in spite of being told, even by the wreckers themselves, that this is exactly what they were going to do. He knows you can’t talk Cuckwhites down and that they will destroy every nation they control. Since this includes virtually every nation worth living in, he works on a way off the planet entirely.
Don’t get me wrong, the best approach is to retake the good parts of THIS planet and send the Cucks off to die in space. Ooops, we sent you the wrong way, Mr. Double-Soy-Latte-Frappuccino, the good news is that your new destination won’t be so cold, the bad news is that it’ll be really, really, warm.
This is probably a good general strategy too. There are just some places, like here in Oregon, that are just so far gone that the only sensible plan is to make as much money pandering to the loons as you can and spend it on your own personal “Mars mission” – though it might just be to Tennessee or North Florida.
Electric cars stands as the best example that math/facts will not sway a true-believer. It really does not require all that much effort to quickly illustrate all the problems with electric cars or “renewable” electricity and certainly with the combination of the two. (night time being solar power’s most vexing foe) Yet, here we are … people who really do believe (and it’s belief, not understanding) that a modern economy can be powered by the equivalent of unicorn farts are driving us in this direction. And this goes back to Z’s recent Taki’s post: it’s one thing to have to suffer these people in their own delusions. But central to their delusion is that they are not just dragging, but are pushing all of us normal people into their fantasy world with them. I really don’t care if Karen wears a mask – but Karen’s real fantasy is forcing me to wear one (while she pleasures herself to either to my complaints, or her cats) and that I cannot abide. But Karen will always find an out for herself. She’ll cover her house with solar panels, but when it’s cloudy and hot, she’ll expect the grid to pick up the electrical load, and for the rest of us to pay the cost of maintaining it until she needs it. Same with transportation, same with diverse schools, same with high-density housing, etc. etc. Math/facts/reason will not sway these people. But the pain of the consequences of their decisions just might. Our tactical goal would seem to be to make them enjoy the full fruits of their advocacy.
> She’ll cover her house with solar panels, but when it’s cloudy and hot, she’ll expect the grid to pick up the electrical load, and for the rest of us to pay the cost of maintaining it until she needs it.
California is starting to tax people for having solar panels, because they say they aren’t giving their fair share to power grid infrastructure. To quote a classic South Park line “If irony was strawberries, we would be drinking a lot of smoothies right now.”
cali is shafting all the people who went for subsidised panels. here’s the special cali part: when the grid is down, the panels provide 0 current to the house! yep, the panels feed into the grid, only!!
but that’s not all. if a panel shorts, for any reason, your house is going to burn down. cause the FD won’t touch a house with panels. why not? because they keep putting out current, and lots of it, as long as the sun is shining on the panel.
wait till they start charging them huge amounts to recycle them in an environmentally safe manner.
“people who really do believe (and it’s belief, not understanding) that a modern economy can be powered by the equivalent of unicorn farts are driving us in this direction.”
If you where three masks and duct-tape over them, that should stop those unicorn farts.
At 100 comments I’m probably not the first to mention this, but I wonder if we’re gonna hear about some cloud person who was stuck in that highway closure with nothing but a big battery on wheels. I’ve heard a tank of gas can give you a full week of idling. It’s very useful to drive around with a generator!
“Joe Biden” himself was out there rescuing the hapless victims (a whole new class) from the effects of runaway climate change! With a bad dude called “Corn Pop” hard at work by “Joe Biden’s” ever-alert, hardworking side, it was a sight to behold!
Heroic doesn’t begin to describe it. Leonidas would blush before this dynamic duo’s manly deeds! The crew of the Titanic would be ashamed of their cowardice before “Joe Biden” and Corn Pop. The Charge of the Light Brigade was as nothing in comparison.
We are truly blessed as a country.
It’s weird to me that electric cars have become a point of political schismogenesis in this country.
Dino: Lovely new word for me to learn and use. Thank you.
I was at the F1 race the last time they were at Indy (circa 2008) seated close to the start / finish line. Just prior to lights out – the sound I heard and felt was…loud.. unforgettably loud.
F1 toned the cars down a few years ago, and if you’ve ever listened to / watched the E1 series – that’s a sure fire way to completely destroy any live or televised viewership.
I do find what Ford has done with the Mustang exhaust mode control to be rather annoying – or better stated the people that drive / use it.
“Duct” tape. “Duct” tape. “Duct” tape. “Duct” tape.
Long enough now?
God.
“In other words, the natural demand for electric cars was zero and remains low even with the push to manufacture demand.”
I think this has always been the thing that I found so odd about the electric car craze. The demand, just ten years ago, wasn’t there; and as you mention, is barely there now. The people had to be told to demand them.
And this dovetails nicely with a whole lot of other things people seem to believe, and that there is now (manufactured) demand for: vaccines, more police, bigger government &c.
It is no wonder that eco-whackjobs, vexx-pushers, freedom-crushers and vegans are often all of these things, it’s because they are simply the portion of the population who loves to be controlled. They love to be told to demand something. They join the big, special club that way.
At least if you run a Covidian over in an electric vehicle, you can hear xzher’s bones snap; that’s something I suppose.
Also, isn’t today the ‘anniversary’ of the, ahem, ‘insurrection’? Have the papers in the US been going wild over this? Sorry it’s OT, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were all over it, remembering when they all stayed strong for ‘Our Democracy’.
“At least if you run a Covidian over in an electric vehicle, you can hear xzher’s bones snap; that’s something I suppose.”
Now THAT is what I call “looking on the bright side”!
Re Insurrection Day, I listened here to the local Bolshevik in L.A., Bill Handel.
Forgive me for laughing out loud during the speech. These nitwits either think they’re giving a speech in Ben Hur, or they really want to start a civil war.
Bolshie Bill was gobstoppered.
He and his crew fell all over themselves trying to downplay what they had just heard, but you could tell they were stunned by the mendacious stupidity.
Glimmers of realization began to flicker in their fogged minds- this, after BB had spent all yesterday morning about the delusions of Trumpist anti-vaxxers who believe it’s possible to suppress the vote.
Bonus! Covid rules are about to cost L.A. the Superbowl. Hahahaha!
“These nitwits either think they’re giving a speech in Ben Hur, … .”
Delicious! A fine turn of phrase!
bill handel is a first class cunt. that is all.
“The point of this exercise is not to argue against electric cars, but to point out that practicality and self-interest are not what motivates the ruling class. All of them mouth the platitudes of Gaia worship because that is the prevailing orthodoxy. It is a way for them to signal their adherence to the faith.”
So they’re sheep, too. No more elites, just poseurs. Democracy is mediocre.
The UK is planning on banning the sale of internal combustion engine cars (and motorcycles) starting in 2030.
The problem is that the power grid won’t be able to handle it, especially if a large number of people plug in their cars at the same time, like say ~6 p.m. when they get home from work.
The Gaia worshippers will need to start building a lot of nuclear power plants to handle the electricity demand, something they don’t like to admit.
This new religion seems to reward the most unrealistic. That can’t last.
given the state of every country on the planet, i wouldn’t worry too much about their 5 year plans.
everyone thinks wealthy people are immune to madness. well, ask Louis XVI how that works. when the SHTF, any of these monsters still around will be strung up and dismembered.
trouble with burning the world down, there is no where else to hide out.
Fortunately, construction of nuclear power plants can be approved online in a matter of minutes. And they can be built in a few days. And in a matter of months, we’ll be able to build nuclear plants in a matter of only hours. And AOC has perfected a method of digging up uranium by hand. And in her own back yard! So the future is bright indeed!
Meh.
Christianity, especially in its first five centuries rewarded the most unrealistic. Those that sacrificed their lives for the movement became revered martyrs and saints. Those that donated their inherited fortunes became revered patrons of church long remembered.
Name five of each. (And we’ll know if you look them up.) Anyway, have at it: Name five martyrs and five rich donors that you remember today.
just playing devils advocate here, but my understanding is that 10 of the original apostles were martyred.
dude, i am really really trying to be kind here. you do not know shit. what year did christianity start? what year did it become the official religion of rome (i.e. persecution stops). subtract one from the other, what does that equal? subtract that from 500. now go read a couple of dozen books.
if you are female, please change “dude” to “dudette” (re: “doxie”). if you are a trannie, then just go with “dude”.
“The Gaia worshippers will need to start building a lot of nuclear power plants to handle the electricity demand, something they don’t like to admit.”
Sorry, but you have to be a little bit silly to think that this will affect the ruling class. Like forcing the rest of us to eat bugs and wear masks, this won’t affect them. They will have no problem charging their vehicles, or having a juicy steak when it pleases them.
Yes, there will be reliable poser plants, good food and well-charged autos. But those valuable resources will be reserved for the essential ruling class and their pets. The rest of us will just have to make do with the “new normal”. So sorry. Can’t be helped.
“They will have no problem charging their vehicles, or having a juicy steak when it pleases them.”
Explain *in detail* how these things will be done. Where? Remember–in detail.
“Like forcing the rest of us to eat bugs and wear masks … .”
“Forcing?” Explain in detail how that has been done. Explain what you mean by “the rest of us.” Whom does that include? (Hint: Not me or anybody I know or even anybody in my city of 620,000. No, not one has been forced.)
I think it can last. The UK (and the USA) are importing millions of people for whom running water and reliable electricity are a luxury. Its inhabitants seem to like that just fine, if not prefer it.
As long as the welfare cheques keep coming in there’s no reason for them to leave or even notice a disruption.
By “disruption,” what do you mean *specifically*?
There being no cars / electricity in homes.
Simpler solution:
Ban private cars for the hoi polloi.
See? Easy. A natural.
Already in the works.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1535798/private-car-ownership-road-driving-changes-updates
Coming to a country near you in the near future. The UK (shortly followed by a few other European countries) is going to be the test bed.
Read the article -no real proposals just a lot of “wouldn’t it be nice” rhetoric.
Physical reality will not allow them to do what they would like to happen.
Reality is on our side, which is nice.
Just like banning drugs and murder. Works to a fare-thee-well in Chi-town and Lagos-on-the-Chesapeake.
When anyone buys a new sportbike, the stock exhaust is the first thing that gets thrown away, Euro compliance demands be damned
A few boutique electrics are on the market, but they suffer from being overweight with no range. Besides, only weirdos want a silent motorcycle, and they are a miniscule segment of the market.
Electric motorcycles are the most pointless vehicles made, at least in the West. The vast majority of motorcycles in the states and Europe are recreational, for fun. The sound and the feel are everything.
Electric motorcycles have neither.
“Electric motorcycles are the most pointless vehicles made, at least in the West. The vast majority of motorcycles in the states and Europe are recreational, for fun. The sound and the feel are everything.
“Electric motorcycles have neither.”
Shocking!
I don’t think that the ruling class likes motorcycles much. Riding a motorcycle embodies everything that they hate and fear. They’d be happy to kill them indirectly by forcing them to be electric.
I’ve never seen a small hat underneath when someone took off their helmet.
You don’t have to live in a state where motorcycle helmets are obligatory.
Golf carts for all!
Golf carts for freedom!
What? How can you hate freedom?
Motorcycles elicit feelings and an attitude about the world that our rulers would rather die away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLOlPBGlq0U
love that harley hog sound “potatopotatopotatopotato”
might as well get an electric bicycle at that point. cheaper and you can ride it more places.
Loud pipes save lives
Yep, I don’t understand this grift no way, no how….
At the risk of sounding like other commentators who have said it better than I can, being no engineer I just don’t see how we have anywhere close to the infrastructure to support the EV industry. A friend of mine who owns a Tesla tells me it takes about 3 hours to charge the battery. Should the mandated switch become a reality, there’s not enough power to fuel EVs, bitcoin mining and all these other power-hungry ventures being added onto the day to day current power use in the modern world.
As Theranos and LGB shows, our elites are retarded, senile grifters finally getting out-grifted. It gives me a grudging respect for Musk since he realized the essential truth of PT Barnum philosophy: “There’s a sucker born every minute and two to shuck him.” Mars 2024, bitches!
Very few people understand the economics of power generation, much less the technical issues. I’ve been out of it for many decades, so I’m not up to date, but the elites seem to be totally unaware of how the lights come on. Is that possible? My boilermaker friend understands the issues, but my highly educated friend was indignant that Alabama Power was charging solar customers for the privilege of using the electric grid for backup power while they sell their excess generation back to them. I begged to disagree. Cheap and available power is, next to modern plumbing, the miracle of our times-one the elites seem quite willing to kill off. We are lucky here that Southern Company is at least keeping a few coal/nuclear plants running, while Texas and California don’t seem to care if their customers die of cold/heat. It’s the “progressive” mindset. We must move forward, comrades. Gaia doesn’t like fossil fuels.
…elites seem to be totally unaware of how the lights come on…
A light switch with wire thingies attached, and some magic. C’mon man.
The *only* new nuclear reactors built in the USSA since the 1970s are under construction NOW by Georgia Power. There are two, which will make a total of four on the same site, assuming they EVER finish the project, which is YEARS past due and BILLIONS over budget. But yeah, it *will* be completed, and the Georgia Public Service Commission has been pretty reasonable in approving or denying the requests to pass cost overruns on to the consumer. All in all it’s gone well enough, and it is going to go into operation.
And that is another reason why you DR folks should colonize the South. We are waiting with open arms, and you know in your hearts that it’s the right place for you. What are the alternatives? Seriously?
Idaho and Montana during a Grand Solar Minimum?
Lineman was/is right about community, but wrong about the location.
It is just so blooming HOT south of the Mason Dixon.
You Rebels may have your “electricity” and “jobs” and “freedom”, but you also are saddled with a lot of legacy farm equipment.
Farming in the northwoods is next to impossible (even the Finladers had to give up in my neck of the woods), but Europeans can live up there. Without subsidies, Africans can not.
I hadn’t thought about it until you enlightened me, but yeah, you are SO right: Minneapolis and Chicago and Dee-Troyt and Madison, Wi-scon-sin are slap empty of non-whites. That’s why Chi-town and Dee-Troyt are such thriving cities today! That’s why ALL the BLM boogaloo has taken place in Alabama.
Gosh, gurl, you sho’ is smart.
AND observant.
“Farming in the northwoods is next to impossible (even the Finladers had to give up in my neck of the woods), but Europeans can live up there.”
A Great Leap Forward in human development or agriculture or something. Europeans capable of living without farming.
Oh, yeah, and “electricity” and “jobs” and “freedom” are–how shall I put it?–oh, yes, “real.”
“You” should see them!
But don’t come here for that purpose–or for any other. We don’t want “you.”
So the DR should colonize the south? There are tens of millions of negros in the south. Yeah, that is where I want my progeny to go to school, socialize, and meet future mates. I moved to Kalispell twenty years ago and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. Negros are almost as rare as unicorns and I haven’t locked my house in twenty years. Last summer when I attended the Under the Big Sky concert in Whitefish, it was glorious to listen to live music outside all weekend along with 30,000 of my white brethren. Zero negros and not one single altercation during the entire weekend. There is no place East of the Mississippi where that would be possible.
Ah, the Voice of Ignorance and Smugness.
Yes, I heartily concur: Your not coming here IS the best thing you ever did or even *could* have done.
And since you are so utterly lacking in common sense and imagination and industry that you still consider “school” for your progeny, then I don’t wonder that ignorance and smugness are your chief characteristics.
“There is no place East of the Mississippi where that would be possible.”
That is false. Your “grasp” of reality comes from TV. Segregation is as real as ever it was; it’s just not on the law books.
By all means, stay where you are.
Well, you are an infant. I lived in North Carolina for six years and central Florida for eight. I know the south quite well. The ad hominem attack was quite unnecessary.
I’m waiting for the collapse Ed Dutton keeps talking about so we can return to driving ’67 Corvettes.
you can keep the 67′ model, i want one of the new mid-engine ‘vettes 🙂
Yep, those are sweet cars, but after the collapse, you better hope a computer chip doesn’t go out, ’cause it’ll never leave the garage.
no worries, there are enough 60+ Y.O. guys (with open shirts, and gold chains) driving vettes already :P.
now days i am happy with my Lexus GS350; 300BHP and a kick ass stereo (best i ever had in a car).
After a couple of decades of scratching my head over how things go on, I’m finally convinced we’re living in it. It’s taking its time, is all. A timid collapse for a timid age.
> Fueling a normal car takes a few minutes while charging an EV takes hours. Again, no one is sitting around saying, “I’d like to spend hours at a roadside station talking with people who tend to loiter at rest stops while my electric car is being charged.”
Not trying to be dense, but do we have to sit and charge EV batteries every time? Is there no possibility that uncharged batteries could be swapped out for charged batteries at convenience stores like we do with propane tanks?
heh, the battery for an EV is a little bigger than AA. they cost $22k to replace (once they wear out, as all batteries do). plus you would be handling super high current devices.
That’s an interesting thing to mention, Karl. I’d not thought about the batteries wearing out, I’d foolishly assumed that like the fuel tank and pumping system in my horseless carriage, they’d be pretty lengthy in life.
How many miles can you get out of one of these things, then? And the cost for replacement? Sounds bloody expensive.
If it were practicable, it *would* be bloody expensive. But the cost is moot. It can’t be done with current conditions prevailing. And those conditions are *not* going to improve during the lifetime of readers here. Don’t forget that we are barely six years into the current Grand Solar Minimum.
some guy just went viral, because his Tesla battery wore out; so he torched the car and videoed it. that’s why i know it costs $22k for a new battery 🙂
Some slight “devils advocate”, but in China they use a lot of what we’d call electric motor scooters which use a glorified car battery to run. The advantage is that the battery can be lifted out and charged in the home and/or swapped out with a spare. The disadvantage, I’d imagine, is that the range would only be good for urban cruising. Tesla batteries I believe take up the entire base of the vehicle.
Here’s what one fella did when he found out he had to replace the $22k battery in his Tesla: https://www.motorious.com/articles/news/blows-up-tesla/
Dude, these things weigh hundreds of pounds. Just get your mother-in-law to swap out the battery while you go in to pee and buy a Slim Jim.
It’s called NIO
I know a lot of people that drive Teslas. They we’re really happy to trade in their Priuses because driving a Toyota just did not signal how how much money they have. Elon Musk solved the problem of how they can show they were both virtuous and wealthy
I got sucked into an entirely pointless conversation with a covidian on text yesterday. She actually wrote this and claimed this was one of the three people she knew that died of covid. These people are insane there’s nothing we can do.
“And my friend who had the stroke’s brother-in-law blew his brains out when he had it. His sister said he had always been well-adjusted, but he went nuts when he got COVID. None of them had had any vaccines.”
She really believes a suicide was a covid death that’s incredible
Every virtue signaling idiot who has more money than sense (and invariably, no kids) loves buying a Tesla and bragging about it.
Yet, when pressed, they’ll almost always admit they have a “backup” gas powered vehicle in reserve. Either for long trips, or mountain drives, or towing capacity, or some other reason.
Creating a system where everyone now must own two cars, with two national infrastructure systems to support them (fuel, parts, dealerships) just make things worse?
I think the more immediate issue is the price of cars. The average new price is north of 35K. The cheapest cars cost around 15K, if you don’t mind subcompacts.
Not sure if this is a supply-chain issue, inflation, or just a flex on the working class. Electric car or not, nobody except the top 20% will be able to own a car in the future. Unless people start taking out 30-yr loans on them.
This is another reason for the push for electric, autonomous cars. Car companies are shifting to creating uber-like services for their autonomous vehicles because there’s no money to be made in vehicles outside of trucks.
A lot of this is due to insane safety and environmental regulations, and it’s only going to get crazier with the recent mandate of cars needing a kill switch…. for drunk drivers of course, only drunk drivers.
Chet, can’t you just wait for the software upgrade from Tesla!
“…because there’s no money to be made in vehicles outside of trucks.”
US has import tariff of 5% on cars, 25% on trucks (including SUVs). The effect of the higher tariffs on trucks is that the domestic auto industry is protected to some extent in this market and can profitably manufacture these vehicles in the US. At Ford in the late 90s it looked like this: $15k production cost for sedan sold for $17k, $20k production cost for SUV sold for $40k. When the managers of Ford Truck Division recruited engineers to work for them, they would say “we are division that makes all the money!”
It’s part of the scam to get middle-class idiots to lease and / or finance their cars. I have a 5-year-old commuter car I paid cash for. I see people making far less than me driving around in leased cars that cost twice as much. At the end of the lease, they will just get another one and go one paying three or four hundred a month or more indefinitely.
” … they will just get another one and go one paying three or four hundred a month or more indefinitely.”
That’s a best-case scenario. They’ll be
*extremely* fortunate if that’s what happens.
But it won’t. Things are not going to continue as they are and have been.
The purchase price is nothing, without considering the cost of insurance. We’ve been paying $3500 per year for $50k liability plus collision & comprehensive, on a 2006 Scion, which was only worth about $2500. Insurance costs more, each and every year, than the value of the vehicle. Maintenanace and repairs can be put on hold, but insurance can’t be avoided.
uh, that cost is on you; someone in your family is a terrible driver. i pay about $1500 a year on a 2013 Lexus GS350, which is worth about $15k. my 24 Y.O. son with a 100MPH+ speeding ticket pays about $3k a year though 😛
It’s a way to suck whatever remaining dollars are in the hands of the middle class. Same thing with food prices.
I myself have to train myself to stop spending so much on food. To shop smarter and don’t fall for this new scam. It’s people like me with enough money to keep on living comfortably but for how long? They want my money. Retirement savings accounts are next.
What middle class?
In the US at least middle class implies a lifestyle where you can afford a good home and several kids on one salary, pay it off in 20 years or less and buy a new car,m cash every five years.
In addition you get at least 3 weeks vacation more over time and a pension at 65 maybe 67.
Do you know anyone that gets that other than a few high level executives , a few business owners and government employees?
The old “well we have bigger houses and cell phones now.” doesn’t apply. If the entire GDP is bigger, your share needs to get bigger too. If an average house has grown by 1000 SQ feet which is roughly what happened than the size of a house that fits being middle class is 50% bigger
A bigger GDP that only makes a few richer people is not a bigger GDP for the bulk of us and the only reason any of us see any of it is that 40^% of the fake GDP is government.
And note we got there do to Americans simply lacking what Commies call class consciousness.
I’m not going to babble on about it, but there is a class system, most peoples only mobility is down though and exactly as predicated in Marxian economics the people the the top do that for their own gains.
Now sure the solution proffered by the Commies are nuts but as always good diagnosticians but they only know how to prescribe bleeding.
“Sports cars”, or more accurately “Impractical Cars”, have produced a very small percentage of the highway noise during the reign of the automobile. Far more unmuffled decibels have emerged from the tailpipes of Detroit muscle cars, HD motorcycles and Detroit Diesel truck engines than the rare Ferrari or Porsche.
Ultimately, a throaty rumble from an overhead cam two seater isn’t about the personal sensations received by the driver. It’s the same as flames painted on the hood. It’s the grown-up equivalent of an eight-year old saying “Look at me!” It’s a way for unattractive, unintelligent, uninteresting bozos to hopefully attract some attention from their peers and perhaps intimidate a pedestrian at a crosswalk. The success or failure of the silly EV movement doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Maybe Z is just a luddite. A little technical progress is good for all of us and saves the planet. They are now planning to outfit cargo ships with wind kites to use more than inefficient and environmentally unsound engines. I for one am excited about the positives except the term they use. Calling them sails is a better term. The shape of things to come!
Dear God. It just gets unbelievabler and unbelievabler.
We’ve gone through the looking glass.
I have to be thankful my dad taught me how to sail a boat
And I may be living on one in not too distant future
Might be the only way to escape the eyes and live truly free. Just remember, red sky at morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailor’s delight!
you cannot avoid the panopticon’s eyes following you everywhere…
http://www.shipspotting.com/ais/index.php
I can’t believe that you wrote what you did. Did you actually read all of the essay?
Here’s a sentence that you seemed to have missed:
“The point of this exercise is not to argue against electric cars, but to point out that practicality and self-interest are not what motivates the ruling class.”
I took his remarks a tongue-in-cheek. Satire. Irony. Maybe I was wrong. But I think he meant it as a joke.
Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s sad that there’s enough people who actually would write such a comment that I didn’t notice.
My bad.
And the downvote is not from me.
I think that it’s pretty funny that you comment about not giving the downvote has a downvote.
And the downvote is not from me. (Now, somebody needs to downvote this comment to complete the joke.)
I for one, welcome our new Progressive overlords.
how dare you down vote DW?! who are the four miscreants behind this slanderous behaviour?
Here is an interesting article
https://www.mining.com/all-the-mines-tesla-needs-to-build-20-million-cars-a-year/
A voice crying in the wilderness. And he will probably face the same fate. Or would, if AOC and Nancy Pee read mining industry pubs. But that really *is* sci-fi/fantasy stuff.
No problem! We will swap unionized GM assembly line workers in Ohio making V-6s for 10-year old Congolese children mining rare-earth metals….seems reasonable to me.
I’ll never forget the line,
“Green means pit mines the size of Ohio.”
“In the United States, only 20% of electricity comes from so-called renewables like solar.”
And the vast majority of that 20% is hydro-electric: vast concrete edifices to the US’s former ability to build things. There are no more great rivers to dam.
Correction: 37% of renewable energy is hydro-electric. But it’s the stable, reliable 37%.
” The point is despite the obvious, Western elites are hell bent on forcing us into electric cars.”
Well, no. Western elites are hell bent on taking cars away from the masses (i.e. everyone except themselves) altogether.
Electric cars are just a step in that direction since they cannot possibly, even theoretically, replace internal combustion engine cars.
The Western elites intend to take away ICE cars and promise to ‘replace’ them with electric cars; but will actually *deliver* No cars (except for themselves).
Right, they want to end independent travel for the middle class. In their plans, the only people who will be able to afford the electric, automatic driving cars will be the upper middle class and up. Everyone else will have to rely on ride sharing services or public transportation. Rural Americans will be especially slighted and have their lives upended by this, but this is feature for the elites because they hate them. The grid cannot possibly be upgraded to produce enough electricity to get everyone currently driving into electric cars, the solution is they want to take cars away from most people.
Barnard: The purpose is both to end private car ownership by the masses and, more importantly, to control and restrict uncontrolled travel by anyone but the elite class. In the old Soviet Union, Russians who first experienced private car ownership reveled in ‘free travel,’ where they could go where they wanted when they wanted.
Electric cars, aside from their virtue signaling and unpracticality and cost, are yet another means of limiting ordinary people’s lives. Just as you will be forced to live in a high-rise tenement surrounded by brown bugmen, you will be forced to travel in public transportation and be preyed upon by the diverse. Internal passports a la the old USSR – no need, comrade, we have vexxports now. Crossing state lines? State your purpose and need.
Despite (or in addition to) Zman’s point about electric vehicles becoming tenets of the faith, I would argue it’s all more about control. Generating electricity is not usually an individual matter. The authorities can deprive you of electric power remotely, for any theoretical reason. That’s behind NY state’s determination to ban wood-burning furnaces/stoves, not merely rote incantations to Gaia. Even those living totally off grid admit the cost of sufficient batteries to power a solar array for anything close to an average middle-class life is extremely high. Not to mention the cost (and pollution involved) in producing solar panels. And, of course, all of this is manufactured or dependent on parts not available in the US, so unless one has the funds to stash numerous solar panels and batteries away for the future, all existing arrays will wear out in 15-20 years from what I’ve read (those who know better please correct me if I’m wrong).
3g4me: Thanks for the reminder regarding wood-burning stoves. I must purchase one before the state attempts to track/licence or outright bans them.
Here in The Isles I was informed of yet another law that was retarded in it’s nature. This concerns the use of only ‘specially dried’ wood to burn on one’s wood-burner. Now, the chap who revealed to me this earth-shattering piece of legislation mentioned that the “wood must be dried to an acceptable moisture content, and then you can burn it”… then you save the planet!
Anyhow, apparently a slightly higher moisture content makes it bad for Uncle Atmosphere and Mother Gaia gets pissed at you too. Knowing a fair bit about wood (R. Bruce Hoadley’s Understanding Wood Technology) it turns out that the moisture content is always variable in a piece of unprotected (even previously dried wood). This means that the very measure they seek to control – and to extort cash from you while doing so – is, in fact, always going to change. Especially if you store you wood in quite a humid area.
Unless there’s something I’m missing, it seems like another angle in the war on independence. The most eco-conscious people I know all have wood-burners. You know, people that work the outdoors for a living or have a lot to do with it.
It’s all so tiresome.
About burning wood in a stove:
There are wood-burning (and coal-burning) heaters that consume the fuel 100% and leave *no* waste (Convert wood to gas). Have been for years. I learned about them from the most practical and useful magazine in the world:
https://www.farmshow.com/
https://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?submit_search=1&keywords1=wood-burning%20stoves%20heaters&aid=8660&aid_previous=16048&aid_next=9451&page_num=1&nav_previous=1&nav_next=1
I am distressed that this is the first time I’ve ever not concurred 100% with your remarks.
But I must say that you are assuming that there will BE electricity and gasoline and oil and transmission fluid and tires and road maintenance and fuel for aircraft and petroleum products to maintain them, and so on. But that stuff is not going to be available, so our betters are not going to be going *anywhere.*
You are right, of course, as to their motivations, but their motivations have wrecked things; they just don’t grasp that fact.
Yet.
But I say again that Nicolai Tesla’s notebooks have been “missing” since the night of his untimely death. *Somebody* has had them for 70-odd years.
And 20-odd trillions of dollars is missing from the Treasury. So “they” *might* have an energy source that we don’t know about, but I *seriously* doubt it. They can’t even keep their own creepy love affairs secret, and development of a Tesla-inspired energy source would have involved so many people and so much activity that I doubt it could have been kept secret, Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project notwithstanding, the world having been *quite* a different place in those days.
No, the so-called “elites” are in the same boat with the rest of us. They just don’t know it yet.
“But I say again that Nicolai Tesla’s notebooks have been “missing” since the night of his untimely death. *Somebody* has had them for 70-odd years.”
Now, that was a man of real genius and inventiveness. A great, great mind indeed.
Also, it’s no stretch for the charging stations to log who’s plugging into them, the current status of the vehicle, location, etc. Now, they can very effectively monitor and control exactly WHERE you travel and how often (should you decide to leave your phone/monitoring device behind).
“Hey bud, we’ve noticed that you’ve been going to that ‘red area’ a lot lately. I’m afraid your charging request has been denied.”
it’s not a wood burning furnace… it’s a wood-fired pizza oven! Mmmm, mmmmm.
Cars in general are being priced out of most people’s budgets.
I myself don’t mind puttering around in, say, a Hyundai Accent, and I refuse to pay more than 20K for a car. But eventually I’ll have to buy a $35,000 Toyota Corolla or take the bus. This is no good.
Marko: A Hyundai Accent or Toyota Corolla may be fine for the city or suburbs, but they won’t work on rural and gravel roads. The only Whites the authorities want living rurally will be the workers assigned to collective farms owned by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. But ICE trucks and 4 wheel drive standard and off-road vehicles that can traverse mountains and ford creeks and small rivers allow far too much freedom of movement. The only roads that will be maintained in the future will be those required for travel by the elite. Rural roads and smaller byways to escape the Borg – not part of the plan.
“The Western elites intend to take away ICE cars and promise to ‘replace’ them with electric cars; but will actually *deliver* No cars (except for themselves).”
Right you are, but have they thought about tires? Or, oh, I dunno, ROADS?
And *where* will these roads be” Leading from where to where? How will they be defended against the car-less?
And stuff.
These life forms inhabit the cloud. And the cloud, from available evidence, inhabits their cranial space.
These life forms inhabit the cloud
And that’s where they’ll travel: in jet planes and helicopters, like the Brazilian elite.
Where will the get the fuel to do that?
Infant: There will always be White men who will, for a price, provide the elite with whatever services they require. Like the Whites who keep South Africa afloat, or the White pilots who shuttle rappers to Europe in private planes. There will be just enough White oil workers to ensure the elite with their supply.
What 3g said: oil is very capital intensive but doesn’t require much labor. They’ve already got the business model tried out in shithole countries: cyclone fences, armed guards, gated communities for the first-world serfs, who’ll be allowed a vehicle of their own.
Yup. In a world of few priviliges, the smallest scraps will be worth any price.
From small private sources, or set aside govt stoks that you will not be able tor allowed to use.
that’s what the elite do *now*, while the old system is still semi-functioning. after the crash, they will be grounded with the rest of us. they only think they are above it all.
would just like to point out the clouds are connected to the ground by the atmosphere. we are all in this together whether we know it or not.
South Africa was still a first world country – with a nuclear weapons program – when it was 10% white.
There’s a lot of useless eaters in the first world.
that’s a disingenuous argument, and you know it. 🙂
Maybe we can call the new electric cars a “Good People’s Car”. There might even be a clever German word we can us, the “Wokeswagon”.
“the only gas you’ll need now, is Zyklon-B!”
I used to drool over pictures of old Ferraris and Maseratis. Their new cars hold absolutely no appeal to me now.
If and when I have the money and time – this is where I’ll get my fun car.
https://www.factoryfive.com/
And it will have a large gasoline engine connected to a manual transmission.
The only argument that resonates about electric cars is that if “Peak oil” is a thing, oil will run out eventually and the time to switch to EVs and the necessary infrastructure to support it is when energy is cheap rather than when it is expensive.
Not a fan of EVs, but the real rub is the implicit understanding that the short range and slow recharge rates necessitate dense urban living. That would be ok too, I guess, except US cities are generally awful and getting worse each decade.
The land-use maps for what you mention are already old:
http://rangefire.us/2019/03/09/agenda-21-wildlands-project-what-you-need-to-know/
https://www.google.com/search?q=agenda+21+land-use+maps&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwieu-6orp31AhXD0FMKHcRCD0cQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=agenda+21+land-use+maps&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoHCCMQ7wMQJ1D6D1ipGWDVLWgAcAB4AIABhgGIAcgCkgEDMi4xmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=FgDXYZ7YL8OhzwLEhb24BA&bih=657&biw=1024&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS917US917#imgrc=zNrB8H64j-P9cM&imgdii=sa39qt9wbfv_jM
Etc., etc., etc.
The only remotely viable alternative from an economic and technological pov is nuclear, but it is simply not politically viable and losing what little favor it had (cf. Deutschland).
Barring some major heretofore unforeseen breakthrough in fusion, there is little else that could produce the quantities required for modernity. Unfortunately, we are no longer producing the Nikola Teslas it would take to do it.
The push for autonomous electric vehicles is for the same reason they push for eating bugs, gun control, depopulating rural areas, and foregoing home ownership and family. It’s to sever any connection of people with Nature, instead boxing them into an increasingly stifling box utterly detached from any semblance of our primal natures.
A have a few buddies who tinker with classic sports cars, no chips or anything, and they figure out the components inside and out, and can tweak it to their heart’s content. Modern vehicles are so byzantine and overengineered this is no longer possible. Fixing ones own home fosters a sense of having a castle to defend, and a family to protest. Raising and butchering livestock gives an innate sense of the circle of life. In short, weilding physical tools with our hands gives a spiritual sensation in men that very little can replicate. Once that’s taken away, watch the spiritual deadness come creeping in. The model citizen for The End of History.
They also push for electrification because they want remote control over your life.
If they don’t want you driving on Wednesday, they will push a software update to your EV Tuesday evening and voila, you won’t be going anywhere the next day.
My energy company tried to push to me a “free” smart thermostat. “It has Wifi!”, “You can control it when you’re out of the house!”. Oh, they forgot to mention they can override your temperature at will with it.
No thanks.
Like those fooking hotel motion sensors on the thermostat that turn off the A/C when you’re in deep REM sleep.
Wake up, thrash around, A/C comes back on, sleep, A/C turns off, rinse repeat.
God, I hate those things. “Save the planet”, my ass.
IFF they have an *unfailing* supply of electricity.
Infant-
I concur that the controllers are making an erroneous assumption that they will have a stable, unlimited supply of electricity from our already rickety grid that is degrading by the day.
I am not certain why they seem so blind to this. Is it religious fervor for renewables? A complete lack of technical and engineering experience? Simple hubris? A combination of all three?
The next time I see an electric vehicle on the street, I guess the odds are that it will be driven by a Presbyterian.
It’ll be driven by the same sort that drives hybrids with coexist stickers on it. Like you said, Presby’s.
About 20 years ago I started joking that all we really needed to do, back circa 1985, was repeal the “titles of nobility” clause in the Constitution and bring back the whole Late Medieval schmear — sumptuary laws, flagellant processions, and so on. Imagine the pain the world would’ve been saved, had we been able to create Bill and Hill Lord and Lady Cornpone, the Duc et Duchesse d’Arkansas! Hill could’ve ordered her servants to avert their gaze in her presence, Bill could’ve enjoyed his prima nocte rights with the daughters of the local squires, and they never would’ve left Little Rock.
Consider the pain we’d save if, instead of only letting the pussyhatters congregate whenever there’s a Supreme Court nomination, we scheduled regular processions? They could parade through Times Square in April, down the Miracle Mile in Chicago in June, and so on, flagellating themselves for our sins. They wouldn’t have the time or energy to think of anything else, so they’d leave us alone.
So too with the sumptuary laws. Instead of creating an entire “industry” devoted to churning out electric cars that hardly anyone can afford (and even fewer can afford to actually drive), why not go medieval style? The lowest rungs of the civil service, or those with mere bachelor’s degrees in Gender Studies, may line their robes with squirrel fur, while those with MAs (or above GS-10) must use ermine, and PhDs / holders of elective office are entitled to mink.
Like I said, I used to be joking. Come the Reckoning, we really need to give this plan some thought. These people will always be with us; we have to give them some way to exalt themselves in public that will allow the rest of us to get on with life. Make one of those screaming YouTube persyns the Queen of Arms, and let them all fight it out about the trimmings of their escutcheons (literally, although I know how dirty that sounds).
“These people will always be with us; … .”
Not if enough people do enough of the right thing enough.
Severian, the Thane of Flatlandia.
Z man, Lord of Lagos.
Snappy, I like it.
you mis-spelled “execute” as “exalt”.
Skull cups and fur codpieces, I say!
and unshorn beavers!
give me a full pelt, or give me death – Patrick von Hungus
there isn’t enough lithium to switch the world over to battery powered cars. and you never hear the elite cretins talking about building a new grid to support the electric vehicles, do you?
how are semi-trucks going to work, in this scenario? i hear they are used here and there for something or other.
They can’t even fix the roads as they are, and they think they’re going to do all this great infrastructure bill and revamp the grid and install charging stations everywhere.
The lack of competence alone will be their undoing.
Incidentally I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the state highways in the southern half of Mississippi. The south may continue to linger on as a place of basic competence.
I leave it to you and Zman to estimate the life expectancy of a charging station with lots of copper in East LA, North Baltimore or West Philadelphia (past University City).
I’m still trying to estimate the life expectancy of an Amazon delivery drone in East LA.
Falcone: They have no intention of fixing the roads or building any real infrastructure – particularly not in flyover country. For a while there our local roads in my DFW suburb were really getting bad – coincidentally, at the same time the diverse politicians elected by the nice White ladies were pushing hard for greater bus service and public transportation.
They seem to have backed off on that for a while – the first thing every new Han and Pajeet import does after squatting in an apartment is buy a car. The few buses one sees are routinely almost empty. But they’re increasingly paving local roads with asphalt, where before everything was concrete.
I was caught by surprise at how nice the state highways were in Mississippi on my drive out to Florida
So there is some hope.
Never saw 86, 88 and 90 octanes like in Texas btw. We have 87, 89 and 91 in CA and Florida has 93 instead of 91. I wonder the history and reasons behind that.
i was on the I-10 from coast to coast, and it was all torn up the entire way. 50 mile construction zone (in Texas, of course)! road surface quality C- at best. So i was right at home, since the effin’ 405 has been torn up since obama first term.
what’s funny is that *none* of this work is needed or helpful. just the opposite; given as Falcone aptly pointed out, they can’t even keep the existing roads in decent shape.
also, every hotel i stayed at (all national chains) during my trip, were under staffed and in visible disrepair.
what I do when service is not immediately offered is start walking behind the counter or trying the door handles or sliding open the glass separators, you’d be surprised then how quick the “may I help you sir” is forthcoming…don’t be passive.
…and smelled of curry?
Well, if the infrastructure bill went to actually rebuilding infrastructure, it might have worked. Once the grift and useless administrative and diversity projects eat the funds, the remaining 1.3% for actual infrastructure ain’t much.
The only value of the electric car grift is that it hastens the collapse. Electric cars will eventually be revealed as useless virtue signalling white elephants that will be abandoned the first time an owner has to pay for a new set of batteries. Now if we can just get brain-dead Joe to forgive all student debt, then the collapse is guaranteed to happen in short order. It’s either that or ban lattes at Starbucks. Nothing will make Normie go postal faster than a latte shortage. How far we have fallen!
There ain’t gonna be no electro-cars. And the collapse is already well-advanced.
“Even if you are not into sports cars, the sound of the engine revving is something everyone associates with a sports car. The sound of the car shifting gears, the echo of the exhaust in a narrow canyon, is a big part of the experience.”
As an aside, a few years ago The Lovely Mrs and I went to a Historic Racing Weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The organizers ran cars of similar eras in short races against each other around the road course section of the track.
One session was the Trans Am race. Before Trans Am meant Pontiac and Burt Reynolds it was a racing series of V8 powered sports cars (Mustangs, Camaros, Cobras, Firebirds, Corvettes) and other sports cars. GM licensed the series name for their car.
They line the field of about 30 – 40 cars up and throw the green flag for the race and those short headered, non-mufflered V8s running full-throttle SHOOK THE METAL GRANDSTANDS! The seats and floors reverberated to the exhaust notes with a nice harmonic resonance.
Try that in an electric car. Hell, we never even got that effect at the Indianapolis 500.
the sound of a big v8 at full throttle is a truly magnificent thing.
I agree completely. I love the sound of my 1966 Cutlass convertible, even when it is just idling. It’s more of a cruiser than a hot rod, but the 330 engine with a four barrel carburetor produces a little over 300 hp, which is plenty for cruising mountain roads with the top down. I also love the gearing of the Muncie 4 speed manual transmission.
Most people don’t understand the joy of driving a vehicle where there is a real connection between man and machine. That connection is why I only own vehicles with manual transmissions. But that’s okay. To each his own. The thing that pisses me off is that the elitists want to eliminate what I love for no good reason. Fuck them.
i almost mentioned a 4 barrel carb :). read a description of it being like a toilet flushing, so much gasoline was pouring through it, under full acceleration.
Iowahawk: “one that uses as much fuel as a Navy carrier”
When the YT channel savagegeese (no relation) reviewed a Tesla, they found the lack of exhaust sound unsatisfying.
They also found it annoying, because without it one could now hear every little creak, rattle, and rustle in the vehicle.
I subscribe to Savagegeese. They pretty much only review the vehicles way outta my price range, but it’s a comfy channel.
It was the mice on the treadmill in the trunk.
I have to admit, I’m a whimp when it comes to muscle cars.(I had an old Mercedes 450 SEL that at 135 MPH felt like it was standing still; I sold it as it intimidates me),but I digress.
When I was younger, a good friend of mine bought a brand spankin new black Trans Am, complete with the gold bird decal on the hood.
He wanted to take me for a ride in it. We got in, and when he turned it over, the rumble and vibration were overwhelming. It was like a living breathing creature had come to life, waiting to rocket off into the horizon. I haven’t been in another vehicle like it since.
Kudos on your friend buying a Trans Am complete with the “Screamin’ Chicken” hood decal. 👍
Modern day sedans will out-accelerate and out handle those old, knuckle-dragging Muscle Cars, but they aren’t nearly as fun. Stomping the throttle was like kicking a rabid dog or crazed bull square in the ass.
plus the new cars actually have handling, so you can turn them 😛
the old muscle cars (but not euro sports cars) did one thing – straight line acceleration…to the next traffic light 😛
Bartleby: And I’m your antithesis. Although I’ve previously admitted the tilt/leaning of riding a motorcycle makes me uncomfortable, I love fast cars. I loved driving on the autobahn. I loved learning to do rapid 180s and ramming other vehicles during the State Dept. optional security course. I enjoy manual transmissions. A guy I briefly dated while overseas (another American, of course) had an older porsche, and driving way too fast around mountain curves on crappy Jamaican roads with the top down was a great pleasure. I enjoyed riding in the back of pickup trucks that the American contractors drove in Moscow back in the day, too. All the things that are now rare or illegal because of a female concern for ‘safety first.’
I don’t think of Burt when I see a Trans Am, I think of Jim Rockford.
Rockford drove a Firebird Esprit. A faggy version of a Firebird Formula.
Yep, they’ve got the global warming/climate change religion, covid religion and now electric vehicle religion – all under one big inclusive umbrella. In the good old days there used to be something called separation of church and state. Now the state is the high priest and declares the religion dujour and non-believers blasphemers to be hunted down, tried, convicted, branded and permanently exiled (at the very least). A new sect will then arise – the holy extermination camp religion. The holahoax will have nothing on these psychos.
No more gas powered sports cars will be built, but the existing ones will become very valuable.
No longer will the upper middle class professionals be able to afford them, it will just be the elites driving them in the future
I’m glad I grabbed the stick shift mustang bullitt last year, a manual and NA V8.
It’s a nice car. Fast as hell too at least on freeways and city streets. All I own are manual. I may grab a Porsche Cayman GT4 which has an NA 6 in it and stick shift.
Better stock up on oil, transmission fluid, tires, WD-40, and all the rest of it–not forgetting duck tape. “They” are eliminating fossil fuels, whether they know it or not.
Points well taken. I will def need to start stocking up
did you read about the original ‘stang from the movie, coming back to Ford last year?
That’s the real end plan for all of this nonsense, make autonomous driving only for the wealthy.
Keep your eye on the prices at Meecum and Barrett-Jackson. They be climin’!
Like covid, electric cars are aimed at yuppies and their millennial offspring.
It’s some strange thing they do, almost a private family matter brought into the public sphere and to which we are the captured audience. We get to watch them perform in Target wearing masks, perform on the streets driving papa Tesla and baby bear Tesla.
There was a twilight zone episode of this girl where you only see the back of her head the entire time until the end, then she turns around and has no mouth, all chin. The front of a Tesla looks much the same.
Tesla owners love the fact that they can be enviro-virtuous while engaging in raging consumerism and gizmo-worship at the same time. They’re used to environmentalism being about materialistic abstinence and Elon offered them a way out.
Ah, so it’s the Zman who keeps letting the air out of the tyres on my Tesla
What is life in America if not endlessly enduring things you never wanted being foisted on you by people you cannot see.
Well, at least part of it–a very good part–is reading ZMan and commenting on the lunacy du jour.
Someone said that real progress never needs a government intervention. For example, we didn’t need tax rebates and speeches by William McKinley to accept and want electricity. The microwave wasn’t foisted on us to replace the perfectly-good oven. And nobody needed to be persuaded that surfing the web was a good use of your time.
But electric cars and insect protein?
“The point of this exercise is not to argue against electric cars, but to point out that practicality and self-interest are not what motivates the ruling class. All of them mouth the platitudes of Gaia worship because that is the prevailing orthodoxy. It is a way for them to signal their adherence to the faith.”
I suspect the heart of this is to punish us “Deplorables” for wanting to have the freedom to move about the county, pull up stakes, and move somewhere else, hopefully far from their grasping, covetous fingers.
If you make an electric car mandatory, expensive, inconvenient, and impractical you tether the unwashed masses closer together within their grasp. Everyone on the busses, trains, and cycling or walking.
Hmmmm. Hard to not agree then. I don’t want the unwashed masses moving out of their fetid hellholes.
In fact, the endless pulling up stakes to run away from diversity got us in this mess to begin with.
There is a strange paradox that in actually fighting climate change we could actually build a very right-wing world. Importing blacks straight from Africa grows their carbon footprint 15 times over. We could ban immigration into the western world to fight climate change.
Collapsing travel down to a 400 mile range would emphasize local politics. It would be easier to build a decentralized world.
“If you make an electric car mandatory, expensive, inconvenient, and impractical you tether the unwashed masses closer together within their grasp. Everyone on the busses, trains, and cycling or walking.”
There won’t be any electric cars. There won’t be any buses pretty soon. Or trains. Starving people are apt not do do a lot of bicycling. Or even walking.
Because there won’t be any electricity. Because they are abolishing the dreaded “fossil fuels.” Yeah, the fossils are abolishing fossil fuels. Electricity is generated by that stuff, as ZMan says in this post.
But Germany–where the automobile was invented–has been shutting down nuclear plants since 2013. Their new Foreign Minister–a Green Party member of the new coalition gov’t–refuses to permit operation of Nordstream II b/c “Russian aggression.”
Joe Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline. Fracking has run its course and is grinding to a halt. Inflation is going to wreck production (below $75/barrel, oil companies make no profit; above $75, it’s unaffordable for buyers) and. besides, California law (among other things–like high gasoline prices) is wrecking the supply chain, so it hardly matters whether crude is available or not.
And most medications rely *absolutely* on petroleum (an unfailing supply thereof) and on an unfailing supply of electricity, which relies on an unfailing supply of petroleum, which is “the house that Jack built.” And when the choice between meds and electric (or any other kind of) cars has to be made–what then?
And so on. And that merely scratches the surface.
The WHOLE WORLD runs on fossil fuels. It would take DECADES to “switch over”–assuming (!) that it can be done in the first place, which is a bad bet, given the interdependence of *everything.*
There ain’t gonna be no “fleet” of electric “cars,” let alone “sports” cars. There is going to be only continued degradation and breakdown of the economy and the supply of everything.
It is going to prove awkward for “them” when food production crashes, owing to the unavailability of those wicked fossil fuels. Already, chemical fertilizer is raising food prices at every point along the chain of production-transportation-consumption. At a certain point, not even the wokest even oil company execs will authorize continued production. And even if they did, how would crude be refined without an UNFAILING supply of fossil fuels?
These chickens will come home to roost sooner rather than later. But one has to wonder whether they KNOW what they are doing. Their whole purpose is the Great Reset, where the population of the world is “maintained”
at 500,000,000. Remember that Deagle dot com site that was suddenly withdrawn last year when people started reading it? With those intriguing populations figures? Remember that?
There won’t be any electric sports cars. There won’t be much of anything electric. Not even their total-surveillance state with their digital “currency” and their “passports” and all the rest of it.
China is a net importer of both food and petroleum. And their crude supply has to pass through the Strait of Hormuz AND the Straits of Malacca.
Things are effed-up and getting effed-upper by the day.
Our betters are in for a shock. So are we, but what I mean is that it will be fun to see their shock. More fun than to see our own. If we have the electricity to run our TVs and “devices.”
The fruits of democracy are poisonous. Especially “Our” democracy.
am i supposed to be sad that millions of pozzed germans will starve and freeze to death, due to actions they fully approved of? because you ain’t gonna survive a northern european winter without plenty of energy. you would of thought they knew that by now.
Forcing everyone into Smart Cities and onto public transport are two of the controllers’ main goals.
Re the attacks on Russia- Nordstream, Ukraine, Kazakhstan- they are being hemmed in to aid China.
State Capitalism has poisoned China’s meager waters and land.
Communist rationing- One Child Policy- has cost them a generation.
They’re raiding Australia for coal.
What happens historically when richer lands beckon?
Lebensraum. They have no other choice, and took the deal. The possessed minions of the Pale have found their new Horse.
I’ve attended qualifying, practice, and the Indianapolis 500 at IMS since the 1980s.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has seen front-engined cars, rear-engined cars, front wheel drive cars, rear wheel drive cars, all wheel drive cars, diesel-engined cars, and jet turbine-engined cars roar around it’s famed track since 1909.
Notice something missing?
Electric Cars.
I haven’t seen an electric car run in, let alone win:
– The Indianapolis 500
– The 24 Hours of Le Mans
– The Monaco Grand Prix
– NASCAR races at Daytona, Talladega, Charlotte, or any other famed track
So in a real-world test of viability, nothing.
But the Veruca Salts of the World want their Electric Cars, and they want them NOW DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like the meme of the Chinese Engineer that keeps popping up on our side: “It’s so tiresome.”
The only way an EV competes is if there is a two hour pit stop (for everyone) each time it needs to be recharged.
Technically, if you could swap a battery pack in and out in less than 10 seconds (the time for a typical IndyCar pit stop for 4 tires, fuel, and any wing adjustments), you could keep up with the ICE cars in the field.
But you’d also need to change tires too. And the battery packs would probably raise the weight of the chassis over an equivalent ICE car.
“But you’d also need to change tires too.”
Meaning electric tires, of course. There won’t be any other kind, dontcha know. Those other kind–those nasty black things–are made of something unspeakable.
And by “black,” I mean “African-American” of course, but that goes without saying, which is why I needn’t bother to say it.
Or words to that effect.
Anyway, no tires.
But what the heck, right? Fred Flintstone overcame such minor annoyances.
And he didn’t even have “our democracy.”
“Fred Flintstone overcame such minor annoyances.”
“Courtesy of Fred’s two feet” I recall. 😁
EVs are not allowed in those races, they have their own class, Formula E.
When it comes to Formula 1, the teams practically get a blueprint from the racing moguls that they have to follow down to the last nut, to ensure that all cars are created equal.
” … to ensure that all cars are created equal.”
Made me LOL. Wish I’d said it!
Formula E: “The race itself is set to 45 minutes plus one lap.”
Ain’t gonna get you 500 miles at 220+ MPH, sadly.
“When it comes to Formula 1, the teams practically get a blueprint from the racing moguls that they have to follow down to the last nut, to ensure that all cars are created equal.”
IndyCar has one chassis manufacturer, Dallara, and two engine manufacturers, Chevrolet and Honda. So at the top end of racing true innovation isn’t allowed. It’s the balance of innovation VS. having a full field of competitors. Part of the fun and interest in racing’s past was engineers coming up with unique and off-the-wall ideas for winning races. That’s why people loved the old Novi V8 powered race cars and STP Turbine Cars from the Indy 500’s past, even if they didn’t win anything. If electric cars could stand up to the challenge, in the past they might’ve been there too.
At least in F1 you’re allowed to build your own chassis and engine. Even if they look the same.
STP turbine car – I haven’t thought of Andy Granatelli in years.
if only that little part hadn’t failed…
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum had a display honoring Andy Granatelli from fall of 2020 to June of 2021. Prominent were the Day-Glo red STP sponsored cars, including a 1968 Lotus 56 – Turbine, Andy owned in his “Glory Days”.
He might have been a P.T. Barnum on four wheels, but he was the American Dream personified, a first generation American who worked his way up to the head of STP. I got to shake hands with him at an event in Indianapolis about a year before he passed on.
Audi hybrids have won 24 hrs of Lemans multiple times. But of course they are not pushing hybrids on us because we would still be independent of our overlords.
and how do you drive when the grid goes down?
all these elites will be dead or living in a different country, once things crash here. but their little helper friends won’t be able to leave. and that’s whose heads are going to roll en masse. honestly, these fukwads are already out on a half sawn limb, as they feverishly saw away.
Reminds me of the prevailing “smart guy” thing after the real estate crash. They would run the numbers and show that it’s smarter or more cost effective to rent than to buy a house, that the future was all about renting and home ownership was passé and a losing proposition. You’d be stupid to ever buy a house. This mindset prevailed for some time, and meanwhile Gates and his ilk were buying up all the land.
Now it’s get the useful idiots to buy electric cars while we buy up the oil fields or whatever the case will turn out to be.
Yup.
Something will be built back, just not in the fashion the elites believe it will be.
” … all these elites will be dead or living in a different country”
How will they get there? And even if they manage to get there without fossil fuels, how will they survive there–without fossil fuels?
And so on.
They will find that things don’t work the way they have thought (and, yes, I know that saying that they have “thought” is kinda stupid, but honestly, words are starting to prove inadequate to the task of describing these life forms.)
i hope they can’t leave :). but my comment was about them leaving before the roof falls in 🙂
The Elites assume, with considerable historical precedent, that they will be the last to suffer any consequences of their actions.
I think that’s half of why they do what they do. The ability to visit great suffering upon the world, while exempting oneself, must be quite the Godhood experience.