Electric Cars – Really?

Read Time:4 Minute, 30 Second

By Jimmy Jones, USDR Contributor

I have never considered myself much of a hippy. Sure I recycle my water bottles, mainly for the local school fundraiser. And though I take my Wal-Mart sacks back to the store for reuse, I am not certain that qualifies me as a hippy. I do have curly light bulbs all through the house, but it’s more of a “I wonder if they will last 8000 hours or not?” Hippy? No. Efficiency? Yes. Efficiency is something I admire, although when I was younger in my GT Mustang or my Ford Explorer I would drive like a loon with no real concern of fuel economy. I would even purposely drive extra fast by the Toyota Prius’ and Diesel powered cars and laugh as I got my 20 mpg zooming by thinking, “Muhahahaha I can afford $1.65 a gallon gas hippy!!”

Now though, I am older. My wife and I just had a baby and I am all about vehicular efficiency all the way down to my diesel-powered car. Most days the reason for owning a diesel powered car is, “HOLY GEEZ it’s expensive to drive somewhere these days!! “Why diesel? Miles Per Gallon simply, that’s why. Averaging 39mpg every tank on heavy mix of driving is somehow my new dream come true!! On a side note I have not blared “Me and Bobby McGee” or “Free Bird” yet… I am tempted however. It’s interesting that out of wanting more money in my pocket instead of paying a larger gas bill every month I am now on the flip side of what I thought was cool in my younger days. I am now the guy getting passed by the “hooligans” of the road. Not really, come to find out my diesel powered car is just as fast as the others, just gets twice the fuel economy “muahahahah” I think to myself at the young hooligans.

It’s the American dream, right? To be efficient all of a sudden? All of a sudden you have a government and car companies telling us that what we have always wanted in a car is finally here for sale. Electric!! Always wanted an electric car MOM.. please please please please?!?!?!

Yeah I didn’t think you have heard that from the majority of your friends or children either.

Why electric? If you ask the government they’ll tell us that we the people have been dreaming of electric cars for so, so long that the government, not the car manufacture are willing to pay us $7500 in tax relief just to buy one! Sounds uber exciting, buying a $42k car that goes 70-100 miles per charge for close to $26,000 after government love and trade in allowances right? I mean I just bought a car that goes over 600 miles on one tank with no need to charge for around the same price what in the world was I thinking!!!???.. Probably because electric driving brings a few questions to our minds:

  • How far can I go on a charge?
  • How much does it cost to charge?
  • How long does it take to charge?
  • How much cargo space?

We Americans don’t dream like that, we consider that a turn off, a dream smashing waste of time right? Charge while I do what? Read the paper? Wash the dishes? What am I going to do sleep while the car charges so I can drive to the diner?!?! Yeah right!!

The larger problem here is, why is the government paying us to buy something that they are almost forcing the auto industry to build and ultimately lose money on? And this new MPG average of 56.2 mpg by 2025 would make loads of sense for our current rate of oil consumption if this was 2023 or so right? But it isn’t, this is 12 years away. So what are we to do? Try to save the world prior to 2025 by buying these “70 miles” to the charge electric cars that take more time to charge than we’ll spend driving them? Road trips? Am I to buy a second car so I can go see my grandma that lives 103 miles away?

As Americans we aren’t such creatures. We don’t hate the planet like we are told we do; we like efficient things. Look around this country and we can make it work. Challenge us and we will champion it. Like it or not electric cars are here. They do work in small distances but they are selling at a pace a bed of nails would sell at a mattress store. It’s because we are a nation of movers and shakers, we will drive and we will drive as far as the eye can see. We aren’t hippies, we’re Americans and you can’t buy that with an incentive or a cheap ad campaign.

Drive on America.

Jimmy Jones is that guy – the one that knows what you’re doing with your car before you do. Car enthusiast and author Jimmy  is a family guy more than anything these days, spending his free time with wife Oana and new baby daughter Anabella. The family travels the world over in their spare time and he enjoys biking, running and kayaking. Oh and trying out anything with wheels.

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