Big Brother Under the Hood

Electric And Self Driving Vehicles

When told by an acquaintance that he has bought an electric car I'm tempted to ask him how he likes his new coal-fired one. People seem think that they are environmentally clean even though the energy is produced elsewhere. The power losses that come from turning fuel into electricity and transmitting it a long distance are considerable, making them great wasters of energy. But why ruin his day? No doubt there is much satisfaction in doing his part to save the planet.

Pollution? It's unclear. Presumably a power plant can do a better job than your automobile at scrubbing out the carbon, but more energy is needed because of the losses, so if the electricity is not coming from a nuclear power plant it's not exactly green. And it's not like carbon dioxide is anywhere near the greenhouse gas that water vapor is, and the whole battery issue is environmentally questionable, both in the mining and the disposal side.

At the present time electric vehicles seem to be one of those things that most people don't want, but the leaders do, and they try to convince us that most people are on board.

"As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism." ~ Vaclav Klaus

Vaclav Klaus is an economist and was president of the Czech Republic for ten years – 2003 through 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Klaus

A big problem for electric cars at the present is a lack of charging stations. Since there is not adequate capacity in the electrical system to charge a nation's electric cars, so you might see power charging stations with diesel generators. Once you have properly plugged in, the generator starts up with a loud enough noise to remind you where the power comes from, and you might wonder if you would be better off with a diesel car or truck – eliminate the middle man. With that diesel generator running in the background people might quit calling them emission free, so maybe sound proofing will be mandated. With “DC fast charging” your car can charge up to about 80% of full charge in 20 to 40 minutes, so charging stations might be combined with restaurants to make better use of the time, but home charging stations take hours, and you must pay for the electrical energy. All of this makes it very difficult to travel long distances; is that a bug or a feature?

It's not that environmentalism is bad, it's that the electric vehicle thing looks like a scam in that we are always being told that they are “green.” Yes, let's keep the Earth clean, but there is something else going on here. Many of the “elite” don't really like the idea the anyone can just drive around and go where they like and live where they like, they should be controlled by their betters, so electric cars go a long way toward restricting their ability to roam. They are being morphed into, not just electric cars but self driving electric cars, and if that doesn't get your Orwellian goose bumps going I don't know what will.

We have been experiencing a long term propaganda push by powerful people to move out us out of gasoline and diesel vehicles and into electric ones, so the question is; why? Maybe the reason they are so popular in the minds of many is the potential for dictatorial control inherent therein, especially if they are self driving cars that can be hacked. No messy police chase, they just lock your doors and drive you to a police station or concentration camp. (Or in extreme cases, off a bridge.) Many people are comforted by the thought of an all powerful mommy and daddy government, it probably makes them feel protected.

Think about the lock-down potential; with a little software and a large enough ego one could lock down cities, counties or whole states until everyone says “Mother May I?”

"Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental." ~ David Foreman

Of course one could play such games with gasoline driven cars as well with the new technology, and they might make wonderful terrorist vehicles with the requirement for a driver to be present overridden. (And don't think that couldn't happen.) Would it become legal to send an unmanned car out on the roads? One could picture going to work then sending the car back home unmanned for the wife to use, but that's crazy talk.

This should give pause to anyone of a liberty oriented mindset. Just why is this idea so popular with the inside the beltway crowd? They can't really believe it's for saving the planet. Maybe it has something to do with fifteen minute cities:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city

Or is it the need for Lithium in the batteries? Apparently Ukraine is a major source of Lithium, so with all of the money laundering and warfare in that country one wonders if electric cars are necessary to keep the money from Lithium being being washed to the right people. (Nothing like a little conspiracy theory.)

In case you sometimes feel like environmentalists are playing fast and loose with the facts:

"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." ~ Stephen Schneider

But then, that attitude is common among all leftists.

"And finally, there is another danger: the emergence of non-ideological but very aggressive 'isms,' which are really quite new. Let me at least name them: We all care about human rights, but I am afraid of 'human rightism.' We all want to have a healthy environment, but I see the danger in environmentalism. To put it politically correctly, I admire the second gender, but I fear feminism. We all are enriched by other cultures, but not by multiculturalism. I am aware of the importance of voluntary associations, but I fear NGOism." ~ Vaclav Klaus

What could go wrong?

Possibly once they become common enough they will become mandatory, it will be claimed that self driving cars are safer and personal driving would be prohibited; if it saves just one life, you know. It does seem to me that a push for this will fail because most people won't want it, the same as electric vehicles are facing trouble being adopted now.?

As a person who spent his working life in a high tech environment where bad things would go wrong if a gauge or sensor became inaccurate in an automated system, one looks at the above picture and thinks “what could go wrong?”

Stay Brave, Stay Free