By Buster McNutt
My car is smarter than your car, my car is smarter than … me? Auto-braking, lane-drift buzzers, hands-free parking — to paraphrase Dorothy from “The Wiz”: OH MY! A future of self-driving, steering wheel/brake-pedal-free cubical android cars — I’d rather take my chances with the flying monkeys, which, as a child, were the third most scary things for me, after getting my fingers caught in the slide mechanism for the metal high chair, and that dream about Howdy Doody crawling through a hollow log only to find it was actually a gigantic pencil sharpener and a laughing Buffalo Bob yelling “Free at Last, Free at Last!” Although watching Captain Kangaroo’s Dancing Bear would often set me back for days at a time on my musical potty chair training, which may explain why I am both tone deaf and totally allergic to underwear with sticky tabs on the side (don’t ask).
It would be easy to say that the future is “not what it used to be,” but that’s not true, since in the early days of automobiles we actually did have electric cars, and how did that work out? Spoiler Alert: It didn’t! Batteries were totally undependable and very expensive. This was because China hadn’t been discovered yet, and almost all batteries were made using prison labor. This is why, even today, we still refer to batteries as C-Cell or D-Cell and so on. Triple-A batteries were made in women’s prisons, but you probably already figured that out, what with their smaller hands and all. Gasoline was a far superior fuel source, since it was made from decomposed dinosaurs, which were very large, clumsy, and roamed the earth for millions of years, and experts at the time estimated there would never be a demand for more than a couple million automobiles worldwide, so the gas supply would be cheap, easy to get, and last forever. So, how did that work out? (See previous Spoiler Alert).
Let’s be clear: Not a whole lot of Americans want an electric car. Once you get past the celebrity tree-huggers, Mother Earth Snooze subscribers, and Florida retirement community golf cart gang members, electric cars are a great answer to a question that nobody was asking. It’s like, forcing math students to memorize 3.1416 if Betty Crocker had not put that apple pie recipe in her first cookbook — what would be the point? Pie-R-Round, not square. Accept it. And don’t even get me started on Newton and being hit on the head by an apple — we all know it was a fig.
So who is behind the Fake-Demand (thanks Donald) for electric cars? It can’t be the auto manufacturers, who claim they lose a couple thousand dollars on each one they make. But, then again, in the not-too -distant past, they also claimed that reaching the more stringent EPA fleet averages would require using Styrofoam for body panels, mostly three-cylinder engines with turbochargers powered by low-friction hamster wheels, and mandating entertainment systems that only played light rock music.
Then it must be the Big Brother government — like maybe the ObamaScare 54-mpg fleet average by 2025. News Flash: That requirement just got TRUMPED! I’m thinking by the end of the year we’ll see an “Executive Order” penalizing auto manufacturers from producing vehicles that get over 20 miles to the gallon, since they are obviously all coming from Third World countries that use fake metric measurements to get around the true MPG. If a kilometer is 5/8 of a mile, and a gallon of gas = 3.8 liters, then the same USA-built vehicle that gets 20 miles per gallon in Mexico would get something like 72 “k-miles” to the liter, which at the 5/8 conversion factor, means they can window sticker that Mexican-built vehicle at 45 mpg! Do the Math – Build the Wall!
The real “Driving” force for all-in electric vehicles are the cell phone, videogame, and Swedish massaging reclining chair manufacturers. This is because electric cars are just a stepping stone to (you guessed it) self-driving vehicles! The prospect of providing entertainment to 200 million bored daily commuters sealed in their TranspoPods has to have all the Chinese Silicon Valley companies more excited than Rocky and Bullwinkle at a Squirrel Nut Zippers concert. (Note: When the Chinese bought Volvo, it is my understanding that the King of Sweden also threw in the other three manufacturing companies in Sweden, which is how they acquired the massaging reclining chair manufacturer, who, ironically, had been importing the chairs from China for the last ten years — just thought you’d like to know). I’m thinking the alcohol and medical/recreational drug industries might also be doing their Happy Dance, but I wouldn’t look for it in their ads anytime soon.
So, are we destined to a life of perpetual passengering in the latest edition Chevy X-Box, Ford Play Station, Apple I-Car, or maybe Google Grand Theft Auto XXIV? To quote the President when his first wife “accidentally” ran over his Rolex: “Not on my watch!” They can take my steering wheel away when they can pry my cold, liver-spotted hands off my medical alert bracelet! Or, maybe if I ever have to actually get over it and deal with the sticky tab underwear. And when might that be? (Drum roll for big but annoying obvious ending.)
Don’t know – guess it DEPENDS… •
