Herewith some questions for those who believe it is necessary to “transition” to battery powered vehicles. That is, for the industry to be forced (via the cudgel of regulatory compliance) to manufacture nothing except battery powered vehicles and – thus – people left with no choice as far as what they’re allowed to buy.

Honest language is important because otherwise we’re often agreeing with false premises. So let’s start with being honest. Battery powered vehicles are being pushed on us – not offered. The word “transition” makes it sound as though it’s a natural progression to something that is better,  like the transition from cassette tapes to compact discs. There was no pushing of cassette tapes off the market – because CDs were an improvement over cassette tapes, which is why it was not necessary to push cassette tapes off the market.

Battery powered vehicles, on the other hand, are not better – unless the measure is the immediacy of acceleration.

Battery-powered vehicles do accelerate quickly. But that brings up a question: If it is necessary – in a existential sense – to make this “transition” to battery-powered vehicles because the “climate” is “changing,” then why this focus on how quickly these devices accelerate? Isn’t that a superfluous thing in an existential crisis? You can’t out-accelerate a “changing” climate, can you?

Especially when you can’t go very far, very fast.

In order to accelerate quickly – briefly – a battery-powered vehicle must have a very large battery, which is necessary to store the energy that is necessary to accelerate the typical battery powered vehicles’s 4,000-plus pounds quickly. This consumes more energy than is necessary for simply getting from A to B. And the burning up of that energy creates more in the way of the “emissions” – of the inert gas CO2 – that we are told are causing the existential crisis of the “climate”changing.

Whatever that means.

The implicit meaning, of course, is that it is “changing” apocalyptically and imminently. To Harum Scarum the hoi polloi.  If so, the how can anyone justify the manufacturing of vehicles that use far more energy than is necessary for basic transportation?

This brings up another question.

If there is a pending existential threat that requires a very speedy “transition” to battery powered vehicles, then why is the federal government preventing battery powered vehicles that almost anyone could afford to buy – and so make the “transition” – from being legal to sell in this country?

Doesn’t the government want us all to “transition” to EVs?

These are the small, low-performance electric vehicles that are manufactured in places such as China, where they are available for less than $10,000 – as opposed to around $30,000 for the least expensive electric vehicles available for sale here. Why not bring them here – as quickly as possible?

Isn’t it important – life or death important – to make the “transition”?

But low-cost  basic transportation appliances from China and other countries are not allowed here, in part, because they are not considered “safe” enough – i.e., compliant enough with the current regime of federal regs that have little if anything to do with whether a vehicle is unsound to drive because it is likely to crash.

What “safety” actually means – in honest language – is that the vehicle be equipped with such things as multiple air bags, back-up camera systems and other such “technology” – and that it be able to absorb impact forces up to a certain standard if it crashes. Mark the italics. A VW Beetle from the ’70s was not a crash-prone vehicle and millions drove them without crashing. Yet it would be considered “unsafe” per current federal regs. And so would a ten year-old Mercedes S-Class, by the way. Because it does not have all the latest “safety” technology. Never mind that it would be far safer to be inside of a ten-year-old Mercedes S-Class that crashes into a “safe” – that is, compliant – brand new Honda Cvic.

The other reason inexpensive – and efficient – basic transportation appliance EVs from China are not allowed in the U.S. is on account of the fear  – use it in the way Dr. Strangelove did – of the car industry that does not want to lose sales (and money) to low-cost Chinese-made devices. And on account of the unions who want to protect American jobs.

But – wait.

Isn’t there an existential crisis looming? If there is, then how can something as non-existential as the profit margins and market share of the car industry that enjoys protective status within the boundaries of the United States be indulged? And union jobs? Really? If there is an existential crisis?

Shouldn’t everything possible be done to ship as many of these low-cost, low-energy-consumption EVs to the U.S. as possible?

Instead, what’s being pushed on people amounts to luxury-priced, high-performance vehicles that are incidentally electric. Most of these people, of course, cannot afford to indulge the purchase of a luxury-priced, high-performance vehicle. That’s why – historically – more Toyotas have been sold than BMWs and Benzes. But this “transition” is turning everything into a BMW or a Benz – in order to assure that only people who can afford a BMW or a Benz can afford to own a vehicle.

Because this “transition” is different than advertised.

It is not a “transition” from vehicles propelled by gas/diesel engines to vehicles that are propelled by motors powered by batteries. It is a transition back to the way things were at the dawn of the automobile age, when only a few could afford to drive – unless they were a rich person’s chauffeur and being paid to do so.

It is a transition, in other words, to the old order of things. Not so much Back to the Future as back to feudalism, with the enserfed not merely accepting their enserfment but begging for it.

Because the “climate” is “changing.”

. . .

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