"If electric cars are so very necessary to prevent “climate change” – that imminently looming apocalypse – then why is the government that’s pushing them so hard refusing to allow the ones people could afford on the market?
In China, one can buy various electric cars for less than $10,000 – just as one can buy useful not-electric little trucks like the $9,000 Zhengtu pick-up truck made by GM’s Chinese subsidiary, Wuling, that Americans aren’t allowed to buy . . . in America.
How about an EV that costs about what three iPhones cost?
That would be the $4,500 Wuling Hongguang Mini.
Also made by GM’s Wuling Chinese subsidiary.
It is the best-selling EV, in China – outselling Tesla, one of the government-mandated EVs Americans are allowed to buy.
If they can afford to buy it.
Which most Americans can’t because most Americans cannot even consider spending – financing – a car that will cost them close to $50,000 – plus interest.
Tesla founder Elon Musk claims he’s developing an EV that will cost less than $30,000 but he also claims he’ll be space-touristing people to Mars
and even if his promise regarding a $30k-ish EV ends up being fulfilled, $30k-ish is still at least $10,000 less affordable than a non-electric economy car such as a Toyota Corolla or Hyundai Accent
and $25,000 less affordable than the Wuling and other Chinese-available EVs that are unavailable in America.
But made by American corporations, such as GM.
Consider that.
Ask yourself . . . why is that?
... over there – is an electric car practically anyone could afford.
An EV many high school kids could afford to pay cash for.
An EV that makes financial sense, an attribute no EV available in America can tout.
The Wuling isn’t ludicrously fast, of course.
Because it’s meant to be ludicrously easy to buy.
So as to encourage as many people as possible – especially young people – to buy one.
It’s small and light – just under 1,500 pounds.
For that reason, it only needs a 17.4 horsepower electric motor powered by a 9.2-13.8 kilowatt-hour battery pack that weighs a fourth what a Tesla’s 1,000 pound battery pack does.
A Tesla is designed for ludicrous speed, to make up for the fact that it isn’t affordable – its speed being responsible for that (and its absurd weight)
in a ludicrous feedback loop that makes no sense unless the point of electric cars like the Tesla is to make sure most people cannot afford to drive one.
Another factor driving that is the expectation that all EVs sold in America be capable of high speed, highway driving
– which drives up the cost of the EVs available in America by at least doubling the size and capacity of the battery pack needed to make that possible . . . sort of.
Even with 1,000-plus pounds of batteries, a Tesla can only go about as far as the gas-hoggiest non-electric cars, such as the Dodge Challenger Hellcat (also capable of ludicrous speed, just without the wait).
One hogs gas – the other hogs energy.
The little Wuling three-door hogs neither.
Its not a highway car.
It cannot go 150 miles down the highway at 70-plus MPH.
The top speed of this little EV is 62 MPH and its maximum range is just over 106 miles on a charge.
But that is plenty of speed – and range – for millions of Americans who might want a car they could just buy, without making payments.
Which also recharges faster using less energy because there’s less to recharge.
But it’s not “saaaaaaaaafe”!
So emanates the squeal of apologia for the Wuling – and similar EVs available in China and other places – not being allowed here.
What they mean is, it’s not compliant – with the litany of federally mandated rules and regulations pertaining to how a car must absorb impacts in a crash;
that it must be fitted with air bags (which have recently proved to be very unsafe) and other such that may indeed lower the risk of being injured or killed . . . if the car is involved in an accident.
It does not mean the car will be or is more likely to be involved in an accident.
This is an important distinction.
According to the rules and regulations currently applicable to all new cars, a circa 2005 Mercedes S-Class sedan is not “safe,” either.
But a 2022 Toyota Corolla is.
Which would you rather be inside of in the event of an accident?
A new Tesla is also very “safe” – unless of course it catches fire.
Which it is more likely to, on account of its 1,000-plus pounds of extremely high voltage batteries that must absorb 400-plus volts of electricity, to “fast” charge.
It also has a tendency to have accidents, so it’s probably a good thing that it is “safe” – or rather, compliant.
The little Wuling would not do as well in a crash as a new Tesla, but since Americans aren’t allowed to buy the Wuling, it hardly matters.
Just as it hardly matters that a Tesla is “safe” – that is, compliant – since few Americans can afford it.
If the American government – the bureaucrats and apparatchiks who are the government – were truly motivated by the “climate crisis” rather than using the “climate crisis,” they would open America to affordable, sensible little EVs like the Wuling.
After all, it might “save the planet.”
It appears that the Chinese government is more interested in getting its people behind the wheel – about half a million of them over the past 12 months – while this government wants them somewhere else."
Total Pageviews
Thursday, December 2, 2021
"No $4,500 Electric Car For You"
Source: