I live in California, home to all sorts of environmental nonsense. We couldnât build our house where we wanted to because of a tiny plant you can hardly see and a grasshopper that might â just might â live there. It cost a fortune to replace our perfectly good septic system with a more environmentally friendly one to meet new codes. Weâre just two people living on 10 acres. What do they think comes out of us, plastic? You wouldnât believe how many hoops we had to jump through and environmental consultants and regulators we had to pay off. It was a real nightmare. Still, Iâm not a green Grinch. Our house is entirely powered by an enormous solar array. My wife has owned a Honda Civic Hybrid since it first came out in 2003. It just turned over 100,000 miles today. Itâs a good car. When it comes to energy and the environment, I like to think Iâm a pretty sensible, practical person. But I wouldnât buy an electric car if you paid me. Hereâs why: Itâs not a piece of fruit. My wife buys organic chicken, eggs, vegetables, and fruit even though theyâre way more expensive. Itâs better for our health and the animals and farmers. I get that. But a car is the most expensive thing you own that depreciates â a lot. The cars we drive meet Californiaâs tough emission standards. They donât hurt my family or the chickens. Iâm cool with that. The car I want to drive doesnât come in electric. There are two kinds of people in this world: car people and everyone else. I am a car person. Iâm very particular about how I get from point A to point B. I have no idea why. Maybe itâs an extension of my male ego or a character flaw. Whatever. All I know is, itâs a free country, itâs my money, and the car I want to drive doesnât come in electric. It isnât cost effective. I spent my career in the high-tech industry. When I tell you that itâs smart to be a late adopter of anything new, especially technology, you should listen. In time, competition increases, prices come down, and reliability goes up. Let rich people like rock stars and actors buy Teslas and Volts. Theyâre not for you. Itâs different. We bought the Honda Civic Hybrid because it looked just like a regular Civic. We embrace that philosophy. We donât do fads. We donât want to be different or trendy. We just want to be practical and sensible. Hybrids are practical, sensible cars. You have to plug it in. Hybrids are great. Theyâve come down the technology learning curve. Theyâre actually more efficient than standard gas powered engines. They deliver more bang for the buck. They donât have to be subsidized. And, more importantly, you donât have to plug them in. Ever. The whole government subsidy thing. I bought a solar array. It was government subsidized. Do I think it should have been? No. But for our needs, solar power made fiscal sense. Iâm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. Do I think the U.S. government should subsidize specific companies like Solyndra and Fisker? No. Thatâs just plain idiotic. Thatâs for venture capital and private equity firms with limited partners with beaucoup bucks and high risk tolerance, not for a government that owes $17 trillion or American taxpayers who canât pay their bills. Who says electric power is clean? When China has electric cars, they will be powered by electricity from coal plants that pollute the atmosphere, big-time. The assumption that, just because a car is electric, it must be green, clean, renewable, whatever, is nonsense. Just to be clear, I donât have a problem with where our electricity comes from. I think we should drill, frack, and nuke to our heartâs content. I want America to actually export energy. What I donât get is why anyone would think an electric car is in any way greener than a hybrid. Itâs not. I donât like dumb fads. I guess the bottom line is that I donât like the color green for the sake of being green. In other words, I donât like fads, especially fads that are fueled by overblown hypocrites and bad science. In case youâre wondering, by âhypocrites,â I mean Al Gore. And by âbad science,â I mean man-made global warming, climate change, or whatever the hypocrites are calling it these days. Hereâs an idea. If youâve got some extra cash you can part with, give it to a good charity like the Wounded Warrior Project. You know, the folks who are crippled while fighting to defend our freedom, our way of life. The folks our government should be spending what little money it has to take care of but doesnât. Donât waste it on an electric car. Steve Tobak is a Silicon Valley-based strategy consultant and former senior executive of the technology industry. Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2013/04/05/dont-buy-electric-car/#ixzz2Pj0B8Nmt BTW, Fiskers just laid off 75% of their remaining staff. We taxpayers have $500 million invested with them. Shouldn't Obama be picking up some of these losses? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-offs-workers-faces-suit-by-solyndra-related/
The middle & lower class leftists know this. Only the rich leftists are buying electric cars, and they're being subsidized by the middle class & poor.