Electric cars are the wave of the future. Some car manufacturers and our federal government have decided to replace the current internal combustion engine with electric cars by somewhere between 2035 and 2040. This depends on which lying sack of shit newsfeed one reads, or network one watches. (I’m obviously not too happy with what we laughingly refer to as “the news” today, since all we really have is “the narrative”. Be it left, right, up, down, or even sideways, but seldom accurate or truthful…I think of these 24-hour news channels as 24-hours of bobblehead bullshit). They are populated by nincompoops. But, I digress. Electric cars
First, I feel I should mention that I am in that age-group fondly called the elderly. Yes, I suppose I’m a crotchety old man, and not fond of the idea of an electric car. I grew up poor, and my idea of an electric car was a toy radio-controlled car that I couldn’t afford. But, some of my friends had them, and used to mostly crash them into things at high speed. They seldom lasted very long. Electric cars
My greatest desire growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s was to own a raging, howling Dodge Charger, Chevy Corvette, Plymouth Barracuda or a Shelby Cobra Mustang…big V8s. These were gas guzzling monsters that started out by melting the rear tires and then racing down the road at the speed of …well…fast. You get the picture, muscle cars. And, I dreamed of a clutch and four-on-the-floor. Electric cars
So, why the electric car? No worries, I’m not gonna go all political on y’all. There are data to suggest that we humans are trashing our planet, and emissions from gasoline engines is part of the equation. What confuses me is that according to which bunch of nincompoop (I’m beginning to like that word…just sort of rolls off the tongue) news narrative bubblehead bobbleheads you listen to, there’s also lots of other pollution. Electric cars
There’s massive islands of plastic straws and six-pack plastic containers, emissions from manufacturing plants (not a problem for the U.S., since we sent all our manufacturing overseas to China), and coal emissions from electricity generating companies. Then there are leaky septic tanks, pesticide and herbicide runoff from farms and well-maintained yards, and the ever-popular cow farts. (My daughter says she will NEVER live in a world without cheeseburgers, and I must admit I’m not fond of the vegeburger…would rather eat some of those plastic straws). Electric cars
What confuses me is, if the U.S., even the entire world, goes to electric cars, what about all that other crap? Has anyone seen a photo of a city in China, or some cities in Japan, or India? Or rather, the huge fog of industrial emissions that hide them from view? And, what about those plastic islands? Don’t we need to do something about that? Or, maybe we should just build luxury condos on them to stimulate the real estate market. Electric cars
Regarding cow farts, maybe we could tape a zip lock bag across every cow’s posterior, collect the gas, and use that for fuel. I’m sure there’s some nincompoop out there somewhere willing to give it a try. Hell, might even be able to start a whole new industry, cow fart fuel. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist. But I’m sure we could get the nincompoop 24-hour news bubbleheaded bobbleheads to arguing both sides of it at the very least). Electric cars
I just realized, I’m five paragraphs into this article, and I haven’t talked about electric cars yet. Anyhow, here goes. Not being an engineer (I’m a pharmacologist, and some drugs and driving don’t mix well, so there’s that), I’ve often wondered about the potential hazards of electric cars. Electric cars
First of all, it’s electric, and requires a fairly large amount of electricity. My best friend is an engineer. When he tried to explain electricity to me, all I got was something about electrons and protons flowing around in a loop from negative to positive…or was it positive to negative? Anyhow, I know if I stick my finger in an electrical outlet, it’ll knock me on my ass, and my hair might catch on fire. When you’re driving an electric car, it’s my understanding that the entire chassis under your posterior is one very large battery with lots of those amp and volt things. Electric cars
I studied physiology and anatomy in graduate school, and I know for a fact that your brain and heart work by electrical impulses. So, I’m wondering what happens to your brain and/or heart after you’ve been sitting on a giant battery for weeks, months or years. Will this be the next zombie apocalypse? Would your heart beat faster? Might your fillings start to pick up broadcasts from outer space? Electric cars
I have no idea, and I haven’t read much about the potential health effects of sitting on a large battery for long periods of time. That doesn’t mean the information isn’t out there, I just haven’t read it. (Note to self: do some research on the effects of planting my ass on a large electric battery for long periods of time). Electric cars
Then, there’s the people with pacemakers, and metal implants. I moved to Florida a couple of years ago. There’s probably more metal hips, knees, shoulders and the like per square foot here than anywhere else on the planet. Maybe Governor DeSantis should launch a statewide study into the effects of people with these implants sitting on a large battery for long periods of time. Electric cars
Perhaps they’ll become magnetized, which could be dangerous if one wanders into a hardware store or a knife store, for example. Or, maybe they’ll become human tasers as their implants store electrical charge. Don’t mess with grandma with the hip replacement, or she’ll zap your ass. (What a wonderful world that would be. The elderly would no longer be natural targets for predators). Electric cars
Another health hazard of electric cars stems from the fact that the damn things don’t make any noise. So you, the deer, dogs, cats, water buffalo…whatever…can’t hear them coming and get out of their way. Hard to avoid getting run over by something so stealthy. I have read articles stating that car manufacturers will mount speakers to make various noises to warn potential victims that they’re a comin’. I want mine to blare out Steppenwolf’s song Born to Be Wild, or maybe the voice of Darth Vater (James Earl Jones) yelling, “get out of the way, Nincompoop!” It would be too much to ask them to duplicate the roar of a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda at takeoff. Electric cars
There’s also the speed factor. I might like this, except for, again, the hazardous part. From what I’ve read, electrical cars are a lot faster than gasoline cars, and they have only one gear. Therefore, you can buy one with 1000 HP that will go 0-60 in 2.4 seconds, faster than a Ferrari. These cars will do upwards of 200 MPH, no problem. I’m guessing the government will improve our highways through some kind of infrastructure bill before we start driving this fast (or maybe not?). Electric cars
I remember those toy radio-controlled electric cars, also with only one gear. They’d take off really fast, and when you let off of the accelerator they’d slow down, also really fast. I fear that if I’m tooling down the highway at 150 MPH and take my foot off the accelerator, I might go a-flying through the windshield. Hopefully these cars will include the low tech seat belt. Electric cars
There’s the distance factor. At present, depending on how much you have to spend, you can buy an electric car with a range from a couple hundred to upwards of 600 miles on a full charge. So, if you’re poor, you’ll need to recharge a lot more, or take along strong friends to help push (go figure; the charging stations will probably be about 600 miles apart across the country). Electric cars
Anyhow, say I can afford a Tesla Model 3 that will go 263 miles between charges (a mere $40,000). I’m driving grandma home from a holiday visit, her place is 300 miles away, and I run out of…electrons?…at 263 miles with no charging station in sight. We can either 1) walk the rest of the way, 2) grandma can get out and push, 3) get run over by another very quiet electric car, 4) call AAA and wait 12 hours while they charge the car or 5) charge the car with granny’s metal hip replacement that’s absorbed all those electrons from sitting on a lithium battery over the past several years. Electric cars
I’m also concerned about the U.S. electrical grid. I realize that the government has promised to upgrade the grid, but I’m not very trusting of politicians in general. They did manage to steal all the elderly’s social security money and replaced it with IOU’s for their own private jets, their own hip, elbow, shoulder, and knee replacements (those Congress people are all older than I am. Say with me “WE NEED TERM LIMITS”). I’m thinking there might be more than a few nincompoops in Congress, too. Sorry, I digressed again. Getting old. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The electrical grid. Electric cars
If everyone in the good old U.S. of A is gonna drive an electric car, and we all plug them in at once, good luck NYC, L.A., Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, etc. Y’all better buy some generators (oh crap, those run on gasoline) and candles if you want to see at night, or run your blenders to make your smoothies. I can just see it now, the federal nincompoops passing a law that it’s illegal to charge or drive your car after 4:00 PM, or 6:00 PM, or at all (they’ll still be charging their electric private jets, or more likely still jet fuel powered private jets, cause as we all know, Congress-nincompoops are VERY special). Electric cars
24-hour news bubblehead bobblehead nincompoop news broadcaster, “I wish to report that Johnny from Peoria took his girlfriend for a ride in his electric VW last night after 4 PM, and took down the grid for the entire eastern seaboard. Thanks for that, Johnny. The Congressmen in the Senate have passed a bill to ground Johnny for a week.” Electric cars
Perhaps, worst of all, the electric car will inevitably lead to the self-driving car. This evolution is taking place because people now have the attention span of a gnat, and are terminally addicted to anything with a screen. I myself suffer from PTSD from constantly looking in my review mirror at a stop sign and seeing the person behind me texting instead of putting on their brakes. There are many other things besides texting that folks would rather do behind the wheel than actually drive the car. This includes putting on makeup, shaving, eating breakfast, drinking (coffee, soda, beer, vodka, whatever), curling one’s eyelashes, brushing one’s teeth, watching sports on their cell phone, watching porn on their cell phone, making out, etc., etc. Electric cars
Just think about it. That newlywed couple could carpool to work, hop in the back seat on the way into the city and…well, you get the picture. More likely, it would be the someone boinking someone else’s spouse. The divorce rate is upwards of 70% (according to those 24-hour news bubblehead bobblehead nincompoops). At any rate, the NTSA (National Traffic Safety/Sex Administration) needs to incorporate this problem into future cars. Perhaps they will need to include a button in the car to push to switch to self-driving mode, although this would probably be too complicated. More likely, some automobile engineer will develop radar that detects male or female arousal and automatically switches the car into self-driving mode. (I’ll leave the rest of that for you to ponder at your leisure). Electric cars
I’m actually confident that the electrical car won’t last very long. It’s well known that copper is a valuable commodity. Thieves spend much time and effort stealing copper wire from various construction projects, abandoned properties, etc. Well, it seems that those solid state electrical batteries contain several expensive metals. This includes lithium, cobalt and nickel, and the electrical circuits in the cars contain gold and silver. There have already been reports of theft of the electrical car batteries, which just happen to make up the entire chasis of the car. The thieves melt them down for the precious metals. So, by all means, go buy an electric car. Just make sure you have a very good car alarm system, and that your auto insurance is paid in full. Electric cars
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