As IF Times

link Green Cars Have a Dirty Little Secret.

We see this often these days.  People are so smart that they are actually dumb.   From the very first time that Cro-Magnon man picked up a stick to beat up an adversary, necessity has always been the mother of invention.  That’s the way it works.  People will always tinker with things just for the intellectual amusement of tinkering, but for the most part, inventions make it to general usage because there’s a practical and commercial utility to it.  Some inventions are really of marginal utility; they exist only because someone sold the idea of its usefulness.  The electric toothbrush is such an example.  I’m sure many would be lost if they had to manually brush their teeth.  Up, down, up, down, oh the humanity.   Still, it does fulfill some consumer need.

For this reason, my invention of a gas powered pillow fluffer never took off as I had originally anticipated.  Neither did my solar powered dog polisher,  or hand cranked nose hair plucker.   Because of the mass delusion that has been foisted on a naive public by global warming zealots over the past few generations,  vast resources have been given to people preaching the quixotic vision of green power.   While it’s hard to argue with the general intent of this vision, the free market has not adopted the results of the “innovations” thus far.  In the case of many consumer items today, the populace have come to embrace the whole notion of green/sustainable/organic/natural items.  It’s only a matter of time before they start selling shoes made of seaweed at Whole Foods.  They’re only good for about 300 steps, but at least they are green.  In the case of battery powered green cars, the resources put in compared to the results achieved are truly dismal despite what the optimists claim.

Spending $40,000 to buy an electric vehicle with the lofty range of 60 miles would have no commercial takers unless you were a) an idiot, b) a zealot, c) too rich for your own good, or d) all of the above, the worst possible combination.   Instead of spending untold billions of taxpayer dollars to fund technology that is inherently flawed, the simplest solution is right in front of us.

Buy cars with smaller engines.  The internal combustion engine has been around for a long time and has gone through numerous refinements by all manufacturers.  They have never been more efficient in power transmission and continue to be cleaner burning as well.  Porsche goes as far as to claim that the air going in to their engines is not as clean as the air coming out of their exhaust pipes.  That may be a stretch, but if you’ve ever breathed the air in Beijing or Shanghai, it’s somewhat believable.  Regardless, the technology already exists for fuel sipping small displacement engines that are as efficient as some so called green electric vehicles, especially when factoring in the cost of battery production.  More importantly,  the biggest advantage of existing gas powered cars is that people can actually afford them and are able to plan trips beyond the range of what their eyes can see.   A road trip in an electric car is essentially a ride to the city limits.

In this day and age, with a gas station every mile or so in most cities, idiots still manage to run out of gas.  What makes people think there will be charging stations available when the battery goes kaput while on their way to a doctor’s appointment?  The irony is that they will call the automobile club for a rescue.  They of course will show up with a gas powered car.   If people really want to push the green powered nonsense, maybe they can bring back horses and covered wagons.  We know horses are good for at least 60 miles, although acceleration is nothing to brag about.

link 2013 BMW M5 Test Drive – BMW M5 Review – Popular Mechanics.

It’s amusingly predictable that in any given year, all ‘prestige’ branded cars such as Mercedes, BMW, Porsche or Audi are offering models that are either bigger, faster, handles better,  is more luxurious or all of the above.  The entry bar for any one of these prestige marques is  easily a minimum of $90,000…plus tax, luxury tax, gas guzzler tax, dealer prep and undercoating. 

This is incongruous because never before in the history of the automobile have gasoline prices been higher, speed limits so avidly enforced and the whole idea of conspicuous consumerism so widely frowned upon.  When one reads the statistics that describe some of these cars, it’s lunacy.  In the case of the spiffy new BMW 550i model described in the article, the company claims it puts out 560hp and 500 lb-ft of torque.  Granted, this all happens with a claimed 30 per cent fuel economy improvement over it’s previous generation model, so we won’t dismiss the engineering involved.  But 560 hp?  Imagine the image of 560 horses tethered to the front of a wagon and one gets the idea of how much power we’re talking about.  In other words, on any given farming community of 50 years ago, there wouldn’t be as many horses figuratively pulling plows around as there would be pulling  just one rich guy in a car today.

The speed and acceleration claims are also amusing.  Most prestige cars eligible to even be included in the group have acceleration times of from 0 to “hello officer” or 60 mph in less than 6 seconds.  In the case of the “new and improved” Porsche 911, this number is sub 4 seconds!  Why?  In most cities these days, 60 mph is over the speed limit already, so what’s the cachet of being able to reach it in a scant 4 seconds? None of this makes any sense in a world where increasingly people are pressured to conform, to adhere to some arbitrary standards and expectations of ‘responsible’ behavior and most of all, to be green. 

But so what?  If there are idiots out there willing to pay out big money to access superb pieces of engineering, then there should be companies which are allowed to cater to them.   At a time when so much of people’s daily lives are restricted by the smothering nannyism of the state, at least there are still those that are able to thumb their noses in some small way against this PC crowd. Good for those that are able to buck the pressure to drive around in eco-weenie vehicles the size of shopping carts. 

It goes against human nature to settle in as part of the crowd.  There are always those that want to be bigger, richer, faster, better or more good looking.  That is what has always driven people to success.  If this were not the case, we’d have no fashion and clothing industry.  We’d all be wearing Mao suits.  Buying prestige cars that reflect this mentality is a not so subtle way of advertising this.  Car makers have always understood that purchases are all about statements about the purchasers themselves.  Even purchasers of Prius’ are making a statement, that of being politically correct and of being a  subscriber to the weenie dictates.

So as ridiculous as some of the statistics and features of the newer cars may be, they fullfill a role in society.  They provide an outlet for people to express themselves in a time when there is overwhelming social pressure to conform. They are still a symbol of aspiration and achievement no matter how nonsensical they may be.