An Inconvenienced Truth

1901

Driving an Electric Car will add complexity and inconvenience to your life with no reward…so why are you even considering owning one?

By Bob Gordon

President/Co-founder

THE AUTO CHANNEL

120 years ago electric powered vehicles ruled the roads of the world…and then they didn’t. As modernizing society sped up their lives, the need for more convenient, faster and less complicated
ways of doing life nurtured the creation and acceptance of inventions, most iterations of which we still have today. Once the old ways were replaced they never came back to complicate our lives…only one,
Electric Cars.

Who out there will go back in time and trade your simplifying-life machine for its time-eating predecessor?

Your Get-In-The-Car-Without-Planning and Just Go Freedom
Your Washing Machine for a scrub board
Your Clothes Dryer for a clothes line
Your Frost Free Refrigerator for an ice box
Your Air Conditioner for a paper fan
Your Electric lights for whale oil lamps
Your Copy Machine for a Mimeograph
Your Central Heating System for fireplaces
Your Cell Phone for pay phones
Your Indoor Plumbing for outhouses
Add your own simplification and time saving examples

I have not been convinced that reviving a failed mobility technology (no matter how much shiny paint), a technology which adds another big-time complication to our lives, makes any sense?

I’m still awaiting a convincing “no-dog-in-the-fight” argument about the viability of Electric Cars replacing the tried and true easy-to-use Internal Combustion Engine powered car.

EC’s will not provide any meaningful bottom line ecological improvements
EC’s will not provide any meaningful bottom line cost savings
EC’s will not provide any meaningful driving benefit
EC’s will not provide you any meaningful anything

So why have Electric Cars gained a top of mind awareness they don’t deserve? Why have EC fairy-tales ignited a fire of desire an excitement like the Dutch society succumbing to the tulip frenzy
in the 1600’s? How are EC’s gaining the mantle of ecological heroes, promising benefits they are incapable of delivering?

It sure seems curious to me that in our already complicated lives, when our efforts are to simplify, that master propagandists, sycophants, self serving and ignorant politicians and bureaucrats,
auto writers, car company execs, and a tiny yet vocal “tail-wagging-the-dog” percentage of driving citizens are able to convince 47% of America that Electric Cars will solve every ecological problems.

So who will benefit from this push to electrify our mobility?

Who indeed?