I was delighted hearing that outlets like Buzzfeed News are going down the drain. They are negative value-added as regime propaganda distributors (remember when Buzzfeed promised bombshells for the Russia Collusion hoax). I heard that they experimented with getting AI to write articles, which makes perfect sense. They are basically NPC thoughts in written form.
Another outlet I’m not sure why exists is the Verge. I imagine they will also eventually sink into non-existence. I came across the following ridiculous article, “GM killed the Chevy Bolt – and the dream of a small, affordable EV” by Dan Seifert.
Let me tell you what I didn’t like about this article.
- Seifert can’t hide his contempt for the average American.
“It appears that Chevrolet’s lowly entry-level EV was too good for this world,” he writes. And although he says it’s GM that killed the Bolt, we all know it was consumers who did. They don’t want it. What would they rather have, if they’re buying an electric vehicle? He says it himself: “the majority of EVs on the market today, the ones that people actually want to buy because they have a comfortable amount of space and long enough range…” In other words, not a subcompact car with around 200 miles of range (213 in his own testing). - By his own admission, it’s just not a practical car. But he is either in denial or too stupid to realize he is making this point.
It’s ironic that the “big trucks” that Seifert obviously detests, probably because middle Americans like them, “aren’t practical for the kind of driving most Americans actually do.” So what is? Well, he says, “the average American drives about 37 miles per day,” which is within the Bolt’s 200 or so mile range. However, he says it charges at a rate of 4 miles per hour (!) – since he used his 120V wall outlet instead of getting a 240V charging option. So, if you’re driving that 37 miles, it’s taking you 37/4=9.25 hours of charging. That works if you plug it when you get home every day and don’t take it for longer trips. If you were charging it from empty (though you’d probably never want to get close to that point because of the inconvenience of dealing with that), that’s going to take 213/4=53.25 hours of charging. How practical.
In other words, there is no way anyone would want this as their sole means of transportation. It has to be a second car that one uses as a commuter. But you’re not going to save money by buying an extra car for daily commuting. So it’s really just a luxury option (as all EVs are) and if people are going to spend money on that luxury, they’re going to buy a car they actually enjoy. - Even though it’s subsidized out the whazoo, it’s still not saving the buyer money.
As I just mentioned, people are only going to own a Bolt as a second car, so no one is saving money by owning two vehicles compared to just buying one gas-powered vehicle. Even if we made the comparison d between the Bolt and a conventional hatchback as a one-to-one comparison, I doubt anyone is actually saving money. And this is with all the subsidies! Seifert says the Bolts are among the few EVs that actually qualifies for the full $7,500 tax credit from the US government. Even with that, you’re not going to be saving enough money on gas (it’s not like electricity is free) to make up the difference with a comparable gas-powered car (and whatever workarounds you have to make because your Bolt can’t travel long distances). - If you’re going to miss the Bolt so much, why don’t you buy one?
This is the ultimate stick in my craw. This jerk Dan Seifert actually has the gall to kvetch about how no one wants to buy a Bolt – and he doesn’t even own one himself! He got to test one. I would think that if this experience led him to say, “I must go buy one of these myself,” he would certainly admit it within the article. But he doesn’t.
He serves a perfect illustration of these types of liberal elites and their attitude towards the rest of us. “Why won’t the plebes buy the proletarian-mobiles we want them to buy but we don’t want for ourselves?” They don’t plan to sacrifice their own standard of living for the sake of climate change or whatever nonsense they use as an excuse for control – but they want you to.
Anarcho-Buddy! 